Extraordinary Times
by Kenchi618
Summary: The life of a young mutant is perilous enough on its own. Follow the experiences of a student entering the hallowed halls of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, learning just what it takes and what it means to count himself as one of a race that is feared and targeted by many. Welcome to the X-Men, Bellamy Marcher - Hope you survive the experience.
1. That Escalated Quickly

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or any particular Marvel properties. Damn you, Marvel. Damn you!

Oh well. Here we go.

 **Extraordinary Times**

 **Chapter 1: That Escalated Quickly**

* * *

Have you ever felt like you could fix or change something that you didn't like, if only you had the chance? That you could make something better, whether it was something for yourself, someone you cared about, or just people at-large?

See, I always thought that if I worked hard enough and learned enough, I could help make some kind of difference. God knows I had the support.

Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

My name is Bellamy Marcher, humble high school sophomore, or at least I was when this all started.

I was never what one would necessarily call a go-getter. Sure, I could get things done, but I was of the philosophy that if I didn't have to do something, or even move for that matter, I wouldn't. Does that count as being lazy?

Anyway, needless to say, I wasn't a morning person. Until one day, all of a sudden, I was.

It was odd.

I remember. I woke up that morning feeling good. Great even.

At the crack of dawn, the moment enough sunlight peeked through my room, I was up and couldn't get back to sleep, even though I still had two hours before I had to get to school.

It was strange, and annoying. I liked sleep, and I was definitely _not_ a morning person. Either way, my body had deigned that I would not be gettting anymore sleep that day and forced me up to prepare to head out to school.

I didn't even need much time to warm up and adjust to being awake. By the time my feet hit the floor, I was ready to go, and I only felt more energetic as the day went on.

The moment I left my house and closed the door behind I felt a rush of energy jolt through me. I felt wired, like I was on gallons of caffeine, and all I'd done was step into the daylight. That feeling didn't necessarily go away either, even though I'd had gym class as my first of the day. We ran the mile that day, and I'd burned through it in myfastest time to date.

My legs pumped harder and faster, easier than they ever had. I even lapped most of the other kids, then went inside and played basketball for another 45 minutes, and still nothing.

That was just the beginning.

I was still full of energy, even near the end of the day. More than ever before. I could hardly sit still, and it only got worse as time went on.

By my last class, I had to take to drumming my fingers on the table and tapping my toes to occupy myself without going crazy, focusing on the rhythm to give myself some peace of mind. The final bell was the most merciful sound I'd ever heard in his life.

I didn't run out of the classroom so much as I cut a mad dash to the outdoors. I ran down the sidewalk on the route I normally took home. It felt good, even when I was forced to go uphill.

There was definitely something wrong. My heart should have been pounding in the back of my throat because of how fast I'd been running and for how long. But I just felt the need to keep going for as long as I could, which felt like it would be a while.

Or at least it would have been, had I not been stupid enough to run out in the street and nearly get clipped by a city bus.

I dodged it, but I fell down in the middle of the road, right in the way of an incoming cable car. Aren't I just so coordinated?

I was moments away from being a story on the evening news for getting killed by public transportation. Ironically, the way I saved myself probably ended up as a story on the evening news as well.

I put my hands up in some useless attempt to fend off the gigantic metal contraption rolling at me, and it actually worked.

A blast of some kind of light flew out of my hands and blew the cable car off of its rigging, knocking the whole thing over onto its side. It fell on a car, caused other accidents all over the road. It was just a big mess all around.

All I could do was sit there, wondering if it had really been me who had done such a thing. I was scared to death. People didn't shoot blasts of…whatever the hell that was, out of their hands. At least, most of them didn't.

"What was that?"

"It was that kid! I saw him!"

"He blew up the cable car!"

First of all, I didn't blow up anything. I knocked it over. There was a difference. As I noticed more people pointing, staring, and speculating, I did the only thing that made sense. I got up and took off running again.

I was scared. Scared of what I had just done and scared of how people would react.

It was easy to be afraid. For them and for me. I was a mutant.

People suck. I wasn't fully aware of this just yet, or I wasn't aware to what degree they could suck. Not all people, mind you. But enough of them to where letting too many of them know that you were a mutant was a problem.

Yes, I was aware of the whole Genosha thing (it was much more than a 'thing', don't think I'm being insensitive or downplaying it at all). I didn't watch much news, but I wasn't totally ignorant. People weren't exactly enamored with the idea of superpowered plebs with little to no control over dangerous abilities running around. Hell, the power didn't even have to be dangerous. They could just look different. A lot of people simply didn't like the fact that there were others born that much different than they were living among them.

My powers were definitely dangerous though.

XxX

"Fuck," I muttered to myself, sitting in the park and looking at the news feed on my phone. All of the news stations that covered San Francisco had me blowing a cable car off of the tracks as the top story, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

They had my name and my picture. Awesome. At least they had the good grace not to give everyone my parents' address.

I turned my phone completely off. I didn't want to look at it anymore.

I still felt stir-crazy, but I didn't know what else to do. I'd walked around the park time and time again. It had been hours and it was getting dark, but I still wasn't tired. At this point I was trying to see just what made me shoot that blast from my hands. I looked at my hands and focused on my palms. Beneath the skin, I could see a glow if I thought hard enough about it.

At least there was that. I didn't want to fire at anything else anytime soon, I had scared enough people for the time being, but I was glad it didn't seem too complex to conjure.

I pointed one of my hands into the air and squinted my eyes tightly, as if I risked blowing myself up. I focused on my palm and tensed up my entire arm to brace for the shot.

A yellow shot of light flew high into the air before vanishing somewhere in the night sky. For the first time in hours, I smiled. Whatever bad came of this, I felt that overall it was a win for me.

I had powers. Legit superpowers.

Just to make sure it was all real, I took five more shots, just because. Why not? It was fun. It was novel. It cheered me up.

Unfortunately, it also gave anyone who may have been looking for me at the time a big bright beacon telling them exactly where to start searching. But until there was a reason, until it actually happened, who would think that there would be someone out hunting for them? Let alone a group of armed people.

I was lucky. I saw them coming before they were close enough to shoot me. The look in my eye must have emboldened them further, because they started talking instead of just taking me out. I couldn't dodge bullets or survive a shotgun blast to the chest.

"Well look at this," One of the men said. They were all dressed like they were ready for real combat, not just for a night out terrorizing anyone too different from them to be tolerated. I wasn't lucky enough for this to be some good old-fashioned racist harassment, "Another little mutant shit thinks just because he has powers, the world is his playground."

I was not about to be a victim. Not that night.

Their guns weren't pointed at me just yet. They were likely waiting for me to say something try and casually persuade them against violence. Screw that. I put my hands up, the glow visible behind my palms, "I shoot blasts of light outta my hands," I told them, "You might have guns, but I've got enough of a buzz to make this really hard on all of you. You want some? Come get some."

All I needed to see was a twitch from one of them. I fired and hit two of them right in the chest. They didn't explode, and I didn't put a hole in either of them. Weird. You would have figured that if I could knock a cable car off of its rigging, a blast from me would be quite fatal.

The third gunman dropped his gun in fright at the sudden counterattack. When he scrambled to pick it back up, I blasted him before he could get his hands on it and stand up straight. In the face. He didn't move again.

This was now the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me. I was scared that I'd been attacked so callously, in public. I was scared that I might have killed someone.

" _I know how you must be feeling right now, but don't be alarmed, Mr. Marcher."_

And to top it off, I was scared because I had a voice in my head that didn't belong to my own thoughts. My opinion of myself was pretty healthy, but it hadn't gotten to the point where I referred to myself as 'mister'.

" _I'm afraid you'll have to wait until later to have your existential crisis. You're in danger."_

Yes, magic lady in my head. I had been aware of that already. The two guys with guns I blew halfway across the park and the third one that will probably need a facelift after what I did were good indicators of that..

" _Oh you poor, ignorant thing. You have no idea. We can help you."_

"You're a voice in my head. How can you help me?" I asked out loud in the complete silence of the outdoors, "Wait a minute. Why am I talking to you? I should probably be running."

Maybe because I wanted to believe that this was a real person, someone who could help me. Even if I wasn't in danger at the moment the way this lady was saying, it was coming. If not today, it would happen later. And it would likely involve my family.

" _Seems like you've answered your own question, darling,"_ The fact that my own sense of desperation seemed to amuse this woman aside, it didn't seem like she was getting out of my head anytime soon, _"And to answer your next one to keep from wasting more time, my name is Emma Frost, and_ we _are the X-Men."_

The X-Men. Like, the superhero team made up of mutants.

…

Well why didn't she just lead with that?

"What do you want me to do?"

" _First of all, don't fire another shot. After all the trouble we went through to find you, we'd hate to have to clean up what's left of you once the FoH swarm on you."_

Gross, blunt, and morbid as it was, the message was received.

" _Good boy. Now, do you think you can get yourself out without getting into another fight? You stick out like a sore thumb when you use your powers."_

It couldn't have been that bad. I just got these kickass powers and was starting to feel good about them. Now I couldn't use them again? Admittedly, I wasn't sure how well they would work for a quiet getaway though. I hadn't had a reason to make a habit out of that sort of thing in the past. I could try though.

" _Outstanding. Just give yourself a good headstart. Get out of there and head due north. That would be to your current left, in case you were wondering."_

All I needed to hear. If there was a God, I hoped he or she was with me right then. With a little prayer, I took off running. Right after the racket from my powers, I heard orders and directions being barked. No doubt the voices belonged to friends of the armed creeps that had meant to make an example out of me. Before I could turn my head to see what did it, I got an earful inside of my head.

" _No. Go. Listen to every word I say. Do what I say when I say it, don't stop for anything, and you'll be fine."_

Angry yells and cut rate military jargon got my attention and I took off down the street.

" _Left. Cut through that parking lot. To your right. Clear that wall, and mind your step on the other side. It's a tad steep."_

The voice seemed to know when I was coming up on any particular intersection, side street, or a driveway with a fence at the back I could hop to put more distance between me and whoever was after me.

The streets were empty enough that when I heard the sound of a powerful engine getting closer and closer to me, my heart leapt into my throat.

" _Calm down. Keep running,"_ No problems there, _"Between those two houses. Cut down that alley."_

I had no idea why. It wasn't small enough to keep a vehicle from getting through, and within a matter of seconds a set of high beams were shining on my back.

I could hear, feel the massive truck getting closer. I didn't have time to react. I put my hands up, prepared to try and blast it. I hadn't fired a shot as powerful as the one that damaged the cable car since I'd first done it. That moment would have been a good time for it though.

Otherwise, I would have been roadkill.

And then, just like that, there was no need.

Something dropped down from the roof of one of the homes onto the roof of the truck. Whatever it was, it had three wicked-looking claws in each hand.

Those claws didn't so much as cut through the top of that truck as they outright shredded it. Then it was time for the people inside. Jeez. Those screams. Those guys never had much of a chance.

I mean, they were trying to kill me and everything, so screw them. But I didn't need to see or hear most of what I did that night. The high beams from the vehicle never went off, so I saw limbs fly and blood splatter on the walls and the ground.

I got a good look at that and decided, yeah, I definitely wasn't the badass I thought I was when this confrontation started. Getting shot at in the first place brought my ego down a few notches, and then watching a clawed tornado tear them apart like pinatas knocked me down a few more for good measure.

Having powers didn't mean crap.

Whatever was ripping apart those guys, I didn't want any part of it. As if I needed another reason to run faster.

"Nope. Nope. Nope," I repeated to myself to give something that wasn't dismember-ey to focus on as I turned to run again, "Frost, get me out of here before that thing tears my head off!"

" _No, he's… ugh. Well, at least you're a decent enough listener. I did say not to stop for anything. You certainly are moving faster now."_

She couldn't have been telling me - without telling me - that thing was on my side.

" _That 'thing' is called Wolverine, and yes he is, Mr. Marcher. Take a right at that intersection."_

Whatever. I still wasn't going to turn around and say hi. Mostly because of the not-so-stray bullets that went through a mailbox as I rounded a corner on-command. I turned my head and saw a small group of guys toting assault weapons.

" _Take cover!"_

I didn't need to be told again. My dive over the trunk of the nearest car wasn't as graceful as I would have liked. I tore up the skin on one of my arms on the ground after I fell off of the other side, but better to get a nasty scrape than a bullet in the ass.

From a staging point across the street they opened fire on me, and it was all I could do to stay flat on the ground as the sounds of gunshots and bullets flying through my cover rang in my ears. They had to have been being cautious as they didn't know what I could do. Otherwise they would have rushed the car and filled me with lead.

" _Keep your head down and wait. Help is coming."_

That sounded all well and good, but I had a hard time sitting still and doing nothing. There was a much better chance of something going wrong if I left it up to someone else, at least in my own mind.

Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't about to get up and challenge the guys with guns to a fair-and-square duel in the middle of one of San Francisco's residential areas - I liked not getting shot in the face for being stupid, thank you. But waiting for things to happen instead of being proactive made me fidgety, even if I didn't know what exactly I could do to help make anything better.

I guess it was a part of me that liked having control of my own destiny and being responsible for myself. If matters involving me were in my hands, I felt like I had a better chance than if I left them to someone else who wouldn't have been nearly as invested.

Bullets kept flying my way, but fortunately, I didn't have to get up and put myself in danger for what I wanted to do. With my powers, I peeked over the car and held one of my hands out, firing a blast that knocked the car they were taking cover behind right into their faces.

Getting punched in the face by a car wasn't pleasant, I would imagine. While they were shaking off the cobwebs, that gave me plenty of time to make a play.

The gunfire stopped long enough for me to screw with the lock to get myself inside and hotwire the thing. They hadn't turned the engine to swiss cheese, even if they'd done so to the chassis, and that was enough of a break for me to get out of there. Thirty good seconds.

So maybe I could barely put up a fight to protect myself, but I wasn't exactly a sitting duck either. If there was a detection system for smugness, it would have been going off inside of that car because of me. I could feel how large the grin on my face was. It was short-lived.

"Take a left."

"Holy shit!" The scary guy from before that had turned the soldiers in the alley to mincemeat had somehow gotten into the backseat of the borrowed car without me noticing, "Where did you come from?"

He wore a yellow and blue outfit with an interesting mask design on his face. The patterns were stained red with the blood of his… our enemies, "That's a longer story than we've got time for, kid. Left."

Whatever. I wasn't going to argue with someone who shredded through a hummer like it was a tin can. I sagged down in my seat and tried to focus my swimming vision. After the whole adrenaline dump of that chase, I was spent, and what I wanted, almost as much as getting out of there was figuring out what was happening.

"Okay, what was all of that?"

"Really not the time right now. We're still being chased, kid."

"Come on, throw me a bone. It's not like I'm gonna wreck while you're explaining."

The universe, spot on with its timing, saw fit to try and prove me wrong by sending another hummer. This one plowed directly into the side of our car.

In the end, I was still right. I didn't wreck while he was explaining. We didn't even get that far into the conversation.

XxX

My first thought, waking up flat on my back in an unfamiliar place, was to ask myself if I had died. What a lame way to go out, in a car crash.

Granted, it was a car crash that came after an evening of running from my life from mutant-hunters, but it was still a car crash. Not exactly riveting stuff when you're swapping stories with other people in eternity.

No, I wasn't dead. I wasn't in heaven, because it was way too dark. If I had been in hell, I doubt my wakeup wouldn't have been so uneventful.

I started moving around, unable to see anything, and once again, to chalk one up to my amazing coordination, I fell right out of the bed I was in.

My head hurt like hell. I couldn't see my own nose in front of my face. On the plus side, I didn't feel overloaded and hyper anymore. Now I just felt tired and in pain. Apparently me clamoring around in the dark was all I needed to get someone's attention.

The door opened and the lights came on, blinding me for a moment as my eyes adjusted.

"Good morning, Mr. Marcher. Or should I say good afternoon?"

"Kinda weird that everyone knows my name without me telling them," I said as I tried to pull myself up on the bed. A sharp pain shot through my torso, forcing me to stop halfway and flop face-first on the mattress, "Oh, man," I gasped.

A large, furry, blue paw set itself on my shoulder, easing me up into a more relaxed, seated position. I looked up into the face of a gigantic cat-beast-man smiling down at me, "Easy now, my boy. You had quite the evening."

"I think you can extend that a little further than just the evening," I told him, not so subtly alluding to the fact that I was being looked over by… whatever he was? I was trying to figure out what kind of animals his mutation had mixed in for him. I gave up pretty quickly, "Hi. I'm Bellamy," I said, extending my hand.

No reason not to at least try and be well-mannered. I was probably staring at him, so at best, introducing myself first would just break me even on the politeness/rudeness scale.

He regarded me with a smile. Yes, points for me. Way to break the ice, Bel.

"Dr. Henry McCoy," He reached out and shook my hand, allowing my second impression to come across significantly better than my first, "It's very fortunate we heard of your situation on the news and went to retrieve you when we did. You're a little banged up now, but I shudder to think of what may have happened if the Friends of Humanity had confronted you alone."

He began seeing to the average tests that were normally done to deal with a person who had suffered a concussion; impact tests and all that. In the meantime, I tried to make conversation to try and learn more about what had happened after I crashed. The X-Men had gotten me out, but that much was obvious.

"I'm guessing those were the psychos with guns," I ventured to ask, "I'm pretty sure they shot up a good part of that park. I hope they don't blame that on me," I muttered.

My parents were probably going to catch hell as it was for me tipping over that cable car. Oh man, I didn't even want to think about how pissed off they probably were. I didn't call them or pick up my phone after I had my little breakdown. I didn't look forward to that conversation, or to them coming here to get me.

…Where was here?

"I was informed of your powers from the X-Men. Logan even got a demonstration," Dr. McCoy said, as though I were supposed to recognize who that was. He realized I was confused and tried to change his method of identification, "Wolverine," Still nothing, "The angry one with the claws," There we go. That rang a bell, "In so many words, your body is capable of absorbing light and storing it. You can then convert into energy that you can use to temporarily enhance your physical attributes, or the pure blasts of concussive force that you used to try and fight back against your attackers."

That wasn't 'in so many words'. Even so, hearing someone else tell me what I could do sounded awesome. He sounded interested. That was a nice change of pace. Positive reinforcement I could live with. Someone else who thought my powers were cool, instead of someone who wanted to kick my ass because of them.

"These powers are so sick," I said, drawing upon the glow behind the skin of my palms. It was considerably harder to do than it had been yesterday, but I made it happen, "Getting shot at aside, so far they're great."

"I'm glad you think so. It's not all positive though, I'm afraid."

"I shoot light from my hands and do other stuff. What's not to love about that?"

"Not light. It was a byproduct of your body processing light," Dr. McCoy corrected, "You absorb _all_ light – be it from the bulbs in your lamp, the fluorescent lights in your schools, the television, the sun especially – and you have no control over your intake. You are always absorbing light as long as it is on you. You're doing it right now."

True enough, I felt significantly better than I did when I'd first awoken, "Not seeing a downside yet, doctor."

"You can only hold so much," Dr. McCoy said, shaking his head as he continued gravely, "If you absorb more light than your body can handle, you will do yourself harm. You may even kill yourself, in quite the… explosive manner, if we're correct."

"Really?" I asked incredulously. Everything had to come with a catch, didn't it?

"We had to bring you here in a light-proof container, just to make sure you wouldn't overload without our knowledge," He told me, adjusting the glasses on his face, "It's also why we kept you here in the dark. You were dangerously overcharged when you were retrieved from San Francisco. Thankfully, your body used up most of the extra energy healing you overnight."

"Wow," I said, at a loss for words, "…That sucks."

"Don't be afraid. It is manageable. It will be difficult for you to deal with for some time, though."

"But it's not like I can go home," I argued, "You just told me that there's a good chance I'll blow up on a sunny day."

Despite my circumstances, he didn't seem too concerned, which did wonders for my nerves, "My advice would be to use as much energy as you safely can before you go to sleep, preferably in a pitch-dark environment. In the meantime, I'll see what we can do about finding a technological solution for you."

I opened his mouth to respond, but didn't have anything pressing on the tip of my tongue to say. All I could do was relay my gratitude, "Thank you," I said, eyes cast down at my lap. It was the only thing I could do.

Had it not been for them, I would have likely been killed. Only a complete ingrate would just brush something like that off.

"Think nothing of it, my boy," Dr. McCoy checked his clipboard over to make sure everything about me was in order, "Well this Institute is a place where young mutants like yourself can come and learn to understand and control their gifts. If I weren't asking and answering questions to try and help you find a better way to do so, I wouldn't be seeing to my responsibilities very well, now would I?"

He meant it in a supportive way, and it was a nice approach to take with people who probably had a tougher time with their powers than I had with mine. A good number of mutants probably didn't think their powers were as cool as I thought mine were.

Wait. Institute? Like a school? Was I at a school or something?

"The potential your power holds is great, if you can learn how to safely harness it," The good, blue doctor continued, "I believe that with enough fine-tuning, you could find a number of practical uses for your ability."

He was being very flattering in speculating on my powers, but my ego didn't need the stroke, even if it did enjoy it. My brain needed information more, "Wait, wait, wait," I felt like a jerk for cutting him off, but I felt like he was going to go on for a while if I didn't, "I'm sorry, the Institute? Where am I exactly?"

Dr. McCoy seemed embarrassed at somehow leaving out that important bit the entire time we'd been speaking, "My apologies, Mr. Marcher. I'm afraid I got ahead of myself after hearing you talk about your gifts," Fair enough. My powers were admittedly awesome, "This is a school for young mutants like yourself, situated in upstate New York."

From doing the math in my head, that didn't make a lot of sense. A regular flight across the country would have taken at least six hours. I had been comfortable when I'd woken up, which meant I'd been there a while. Getting knocked out wouldn't have put me under for longer than six hours unless it was a head injury serious enough that I wouldn't be sitting up and talking to my doctor.

"How long was I out?"

"Not as long as you're probably thinking," Dr. McCoy must have figured out my train of thought easily from the chuckle it got out of him, "I must say, you're taking this a lot better than most others do, me running your checkup, I mean."

We had been speaking for quite some time, most of it done with him checking over what was left of my wounds from the car crash, and other than the initial surprise from seeing someone like him standing over me, I'd basically gone with the flow. First meetings or whenever new people showed up to this… 'Institute' in the manner I did must have usually been more hectic.

"I think it's because all of this just keeps on moving," I replied, wincing as he drew blood from my neck with some strange device, "If I get a good hour or two to myself to stop and think, I might wind up having a nervous breakdown. I had one in park before you guys found me."

A big paw/hand set itself on my shoulder in an effort to reassure me, "Well try to remain calm, and just remember, most things that you may see during your stay here are fairly normal," I got the feeling he was trying to warn me that I was about to see a lot of weird shit. Good to know, "Seven staples in your head and bruised ribs are all that remain of what were much more catastrophic injuries from last night. You'll be sore for a while, but you should be right as rain before long. Just take it easy."

He gave me a mirror to look myself over. The first thing I noticed were the stitches in my head. With how short I normally kept my hair that would probably leave a visible scar for little while. The next was that my eyes weren't brown like they were supposed to be. They were kind of yellow.

Fuck it. The color of my eyes was the least of my worries right then.

I gingerly stood up and tested how well I could walk without jostling my injuries, "I'm not so good with new places on my own, but I'll try. Thanks doctor."

Dr. McCoy escorted me through some kind of state of the art medical hallway outside of my room. Sure, this was a school. A school from the future, maybe, "Welcome to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, but if you don't feel like staying, I understand," He said as I walked alongside him, "Your parents have been informed that you are in our care for the time being. They said they'll be taking a flight to New York to bring you home tomorrow."

The relief I felt at that moment was the inexplicable feeling that came with the thought that your parents were coming to help you. No matter what the issue was, they would be able to solve the problem.

But reality set in a moment later and I thought to myself, how exactly would they solve this? A group of guys attacked me out of the blue and had chased me blocks and blocks through a major city. As far as I know, they had gotten away with it once, and it had taken superhero intervention to bail me out of trouble.

My parents were anything but super.

"…Would those guys come back?" I asked, "The Friends of Humanity. Would they come back?"

The way I said it was enough to give Dr. McCoy pause, even if the subject matter had been grave enough as well or not, "It's hard to say, Mr. Marcher," He said, probably trying to think of a way to word things delicately, "They are quite adamant in their beliefs that mutants are evil, and they're willing to act on that belief. With a power like yours, especially after what you've already done, it's not likely they would let that notion go, especially if they knew just where to find you all over again."

Going home would have been great. The thought of a familiar setting with the same, old boring routine seemed like just the ticket after everything that had been happening. Some normalcy.

Did I even want that? Was it even possible? Not without moving far, far away, which sort of defeated the purpose of wanting to go home in the first place.

"Can I make a phone call, please?"

XxX

" _I don't like this, Bellamy,"_ I knew how this conversation was going to go before it even started, for the most part, so I was prepared, _"Why don't you just come home? Everything will be alright. Nothing like this will happen again."_

My dad was easier to convince than my mom was. He made his bones through movies. The man dedicated himself to them, all his life, straight through college, so much so that he got his own theater. He didn't just show what was new, he showed what he liked. If there was anyone that could understand going off on your own adventure, it would have been him.

Granted, this wasn't some epic hero's tale. But it was my own little journey. Maybe he thought I'd figure out something about myself that I never would at home? For better or for worse, he figured it was something I had to see through until the end.

My mom took it all much harder. I believe that if I hadn't taken the time to come up with good enough responses to things she might say to me, she would have been on the first flight to New York to drag my sorry ass back to San Francisco.

"Yes it will," There wasn't any way to convince me that it wasn't, "Mom, I thought it was something that would blow over. It won't."

" _I don't care about your powers. Your dad doesn't either. You know that."_

"Other people do, and that's what I'm afraid of. What if more mobs come? What if they don't get me when I'm alone the next time? What if you guys are there too?" I didn't want to find out how well my middle-aged parents dodged bullets.

" _I don't want to lose you."_

"You'll always have me," I rolled my eyes at saying something so cheesy right after I said it, "It's just, I think going home would cause more problems than it would solve. The staff here offered me a place in the school, so it's not like I'll miss out on classes or anything. And it's not like I can't come back to see you guys. There's school breaks and summer vacations. I can come back whenever you want, I think."

"… _I'm scared."_

"I am too. But I'm not scared of something happening to me here. I'm scared of what might happen to you guys if I hang around."

The biggest reason I wasn't going home was because I wouldn't be able to stop people like the Friends of Humanity from doing the exact same thing they'd already tried to do to me again, or worse. This was a good chance to smooth out some of the rough edges of being a mutant.

If I was going to stay here, I had to take advantage of it somehow, in more ways than just the protection the X-Men were offering. That would only do me so much good, especially if I planned on having a life as a functioning adult in society without being taken out the first time something bad happened.

If I was going to be a target, at the very least I wanted to be the hardest target anyone had ever tried to take aim at. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

There was also a certain amount of self-interest involved as well, I'll admit. It involved superheroing. Who didn't want to give that a shot at least once in their life? The thought of it was enough to motivate me to get up and get moving.

But I was calm, cool, and rational about it. I made it sound like I had spent plenty of time thinking all of this through. I was glad that I could be so persuasive, but I was also glad that she was so willing to listen. Right up until she started to cry on the other end of the line. It was like a punch to the stomach, but how much conviction could a person say they had if that were enough to change their mind in a matter of seconds? I went into this conversation knowing that there was a good chance that this would happen.

Fortunately, dad came to my rescue and replaced my mom on the phone, _"Hey, it's me again, Bel."_

"Hey dad," I didn't know what to say at that point. Even though I knew there was a chance it was coming, it still rattled me. I had a heart, after all, "…I didn't mean to make her cry."

" _Oh, don't sweat it. The same thing was going to happen when you went to college. You just moved it up a few years."_ My old man tried to joke, but even he couldn't muster much humor, given the circumstances, _"…Do you know what you're doing?"_

"Nope."

I'm not lying to that man. Not about this. My cards were all on the table here. I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but then again, I didn't when I got my powers either. I didn't have a choice in dealing with those. It was going to happen whether I went to the Institute or not, so it was better if I approached things as bluntly as I could.

" _Good. If you were enough of a dumbass to say yes to that, you'd be coming home with us tomorrow. If this is what you want, I'm not going to stop you. Hell, at this point, you're probably better suited to deal with danger than either of us are."_

I wasn't so sure. I would be soon enough though, if I had my way about it.

"I'll come back to pack my stuff and get everything straight at home," I assured him. I wasn't just going to stay there and never go back. I'm pretty sure there are laws that would keep me from doing that, anyway, "We can talk about it more then, but I want to go to Xavier's, dad."

XxX

My first day wasn't particularly action-packed, what with the comparison of the insanity that was my recruitment process. Though, I did get one significant takeaway that stayed with me for the remainder of my time there.

The school was _gigantic_.

When I came back from seeing my family and moved in, I got to experience what it was like to get lost in a place. That had never happened before at any school I'd ever gone to.

I got a map on my dorm's bed. I lost it like five minutes after I got everything into my room. I couldn't find where to go to get another one, and I didn't have anyone responsible for showing me around.

Because it was already weeks into the semester, there was no orientation for me. No older student to show me around and give me a crash course in where things were. I was on my own to figure everything out for myself.

It also was too much trouble to stick me with a roommate so late in the game. The company would have been nice, but the fact that I had that much privacy was all the better for me. Still, a roommate could have showed me around too, if we didn't hate each other right after meeting. But eh, rhetorical situations.

The point was, it was a Tuesday morning. I was lost. I was late. The halls were empty, and I didn't understand the building codes on my class schedule.

"All of these goddamn buildings look the goddamn same, inside and out," I said louder than I needed to as I passed through a hall that I knew had classes going. I hoped that a teacher would hear me curse and come out to tell me off so I could ask for some help without looking too stupid.

Even if it was a mutant school where I was going to learn how to use superpowers, it was still a school. You wanted to make as good an impression as possible on the people you were going to spending the bulk of your time with for the next few years.

Especially when they were teenagers. There was no age group in existence inherently crueler than teenagers.

The bell rang, letting students out of class and I just fumed inside my head as I fell in-step with the crowd. There was certainly a unique mix of people going here.

Tall kids, small kids, kids with paws. Kids made of metal, and with alligator jaws.

…

Goddamn you, Dr. Seuss. You evil, catchy rhyme-having son of a bitch.

I was close enough to my dorm room to make an executive decision to head back and spend a few more minutes digging around for my map. It was in there somewhere, mocking me. I knew this to be true. I wanted to find it, if only for the pleasure of setting it on fire later.

When I reached the door however, I found someone standing there waiting patiently. A girl with black hair wearing a blue dress covered with a purple shawl. The most striking thing about her though was the blindfold she had wrapped around her eyes.

Huh. Weird, but still, whatever.

What happened next was not so easy to brush off.

"Hi," I said, figuring that since she was in front of my room she was there for me.

She turned in my direction with a little smile on her face, "Pardon. It's nice to see you again, Bellamy," It was the kind of smile that someone would have when they knew something that you didn't.

The first thing I thought was wondering if everyone was going to know my name before I even introduced myself, "Uh… do I know you?" Were they actually giving me a guide? It was the only way I could figure she knew anything about me.

"No. But we were introduced. Yes, a few times, before I met you later," There went that theory. And what the hell did she just say? "Sorry."

How were you supposed to respond to that? "I have no idea what you just said, but yeah, totally. Nice to meet you?" I put my hand out for her to shake when I figured that she must have been wearing the blindfold for a reason, and that I was an idiot. But before I could take my hand back, she reached out and shook it, "Cool. And you are?"

"Yes. She is Ruth. Sorry."

"It's not a big deal," She was nice enough from the little bit I'd gotten from her. Pretty odd, but everything around there was. Dr. McCoy basically told me to keep an open mind, "What's your next class? Let me take you. I need to figure out where I'm going around here anyway."

So I walked her to her class. No problem, but how the hell did she know where she was going? Was that blindfold see-through? Could she see without seeing, Jedi-style? How much of a dick would I have been to start asking those questions?

"This place is like a prep school or something," I said, in an effort to make some kind of conversation, "I can't believe I don't have to pay to go here. It's crazy."

For some reason, she wasn't very conversational. It just seemed like she was happy to be around me. For her, it wasn't awkward to walk with me at all, even without talking, like she knew me already.

Honestly, it was pretty calming, after I got over the initial weirdness factor.

Eventually we wound up reaching her class, and being the upstanding, chivalrous gentleman that I am (also because she was blind), I escorted her the rest of the way to wherever she was supposed to sit.

"She is looking forward to being teammates, Bellamy. Yes, thank you."

Once again, I didn't understand some of what she was talking about, but she was so _polite_. I wasn't used to a polite teenager, "…You are the nicest person I've met in forever."

We were going to be friends if I had anything to say about it. Absolutely. Ruth was weird and confusing, but I could handle weird and confusing so long as the person was cool. This girl was good people.

A freezing cold hand set itself on my shoulder, getting my attention and turning me around. Holy shit, walking snowman. Actually, the man in question seemed to be solid ice instead of snow, "Uh, hi."

I was starting to get uncomfortable. My shoulder was going numb.

"You're definitely not in this class," The living ice sculpture said to me, "Sorry, but you've gotta go before the next bell rings. Professionalism and all that."

A teacher! Finally, an excuse to talk to one so I could ask how to get around!

"Hey, really quick. This is my first day. I don't know where I'm going," I rattled off before I could be gently nudged out of the classroom, "What do all of these mean, and where am I supposed to be next?"

He took a moment to look my schedule over and hummed in thought, "Intro to Hardware Engineering with Miss Pryde. You're in luck. First floor of the north wing. You can't miss it, trust me," A big grin then affixed itself to his face, "You'll have to book it if you want to make it since you've got about… 90 seconds."

I turned and ran as fast as I could in the direction that the teacher pointed. He must have been one of the cooler ones in the school (ha), because his response was to laugh at how fast I tore ass out of the room instead of telling me no running in the halls. Was it that hard to believe that I didn't want to miss any of my classes? The variety the school had was much better than my last one.

True to his instructions, I found where I needed to be, and quickly. Finally! I made it to a class!

*BRRRRRRRRRRRING!*

The bell rang just as the door to the classroom was in sight, and just like that, the dream died. That was the fourth class that I'd either missed or been late for today. It sank in that until that point, I'd missed every single one altogether, "Fuck!" I snapped at the top of my lungs, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity-fuck!"

"Hey!"

I stopped and turned to look at a brunette woman's head and torso sticking out of the wall of the classroom. She looked upset at my stream of vulgarity, my disturbing the peace, or both.

"First of all, watch your mouth," She started out, stepping the rest of the way through the wall to confront me. A little young to be a teacher, wasn't she? "Second of all, there's class going on."

"I'm supposed to be _in_ this class," I said lamely, "This is the only class I even made it to today, and I was still fu-… friggin' late."

This was a school. I was a student. Students didn't get to drop f-bombs in front of teachers and get away with it. Even if I was miffed at the way my first day had turned out, it wasn't enough to risk getting my butt chewed out any more than I was going to already.

The lady stared at me for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow at me curiously, "Bellamy Marcher, I presume?"

"Why does everyone know my name?" I asked rhetorically under my breath. It was an integral part of introducing yourself, telling the other person your name, and I was starting to realize how annoying it was to meet new people without doing that part.

It wasn't said quietly enough to keep from being heard, "I had a new name on my roster this morning that I didn't recognize. After you said you were supposed to be here, I presumed you were it. Come on in," With that, she pulled herself back through the wall.

Meeting so many new people in such a short period of time, I was starting to notice a pattern. I was downright awful at making good first impressions. In a place where everyone had superpowers and the ability to hurt me badly, it would have been in my best interests to try and find a way to fix that, as everyone wouldn't be a teacher.

Someone who didn't have that kind of responsibility might try to bloody my nose or set me on fire sooner or later.

Eh, whatever. I had superpowers. Everything would be fine.

Just fine.

* * *

 **Oh, man. What the eff am I doing? Trying a new fandom and a new writing perspective. Why? For the fun of it! For the f'n fun!**

 **Good old fashioned American fun!**

… **Yeah, so I hope you enjoyed. More will come in time if that is indeed the case.**

 **If it fails? Well, I tried.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	2. First Impressions

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or any particular Marvel properties. I'm so glad Deadpool was a good movie. I'd been hearing Deadpool in Ryan Reynolds' voice since X-Men Origins anyway, so I'm happy he put it down so well. Well done, sir. I've already given you my money, and now I tip my internet cap to you.

 **Chapter 2: First Impressions**

* * *

It took two weeks for something else worthwhile to happen.

After my first day, I mostly kept to myself, kept my head down and tried to get my bearings of just how the school worked. The only person I knew at that point my age was Ruth, but that girl was seriously hard to find! Who'd have thought a blind girl wearing a cloth wrapped around her eyes wouldn't stick out? Anywhere else, she most certainly would have.

In the meantime, I got to learn a bit more about some of my teachers, specifically Miss Pryde. She wasn't terribly strict, but she knew her shit and she expected everyone to perform accordingly in her class. As long as you shut up, paid attention, and proved that you were at least trying to pick up on what she was teaching you during her lectures, she would like you. She'd at least tolerate you.

I'd started from behind the eight-ball to begin with when I'd thrown a profanity-laden temper-tantrum right outside of her class on day one, but no other outbursts since then coupled with my honestly wanting to learn about the guts of computers and other pieces of tech made her soften up on me fairly quickly.

That was good, because from what I'd picked up about her in passing, she was some kind of badass, working with the X-Men since she was my age with a surprisingly versatile power. Who'd have thought phasing through things was so awesome.

…Actually, her power sounded awesome by itself, without knowing that she could completely ruin a person or a machine's insides just by passing through. That was just icing on the cake.

Another plus, I didn't have to go out of my way to find a way to learn how to use my powers. Apparently it was part of the curriculum, and every student was given an instructor suited to showing them how their abilities worked.

I was getting half of that through the classes I'd chosen, and the other half would come in time once I started figuring out what was physically possible or beyond my limits.

My training was annoying. Not the practice itself, but that it never accomplished one of its goals, which was to drain me of most of my day's power supply. By the time training was supposed to happen, I was close to overloaded, just like I was the first day I got my powers back home. Light was everywhere, all the time. The only way I could have gotten away from it would have been to shut myself up in a closet or something.

It would have been easy for a teacher to slack off with my exercises, but Miss Pryde never did. She tried to keep me on my toes, doing her level best to exhaust me while making sure I actually got something out of the things she made me do. It was not an easy task. It was hard to tell if she expected anything in particular out of me as far as my progress went. She never said anything good or bad. Not until I brought it up to her myself.

I came up to her after the end of one of our hardware engineering classes, trying to take advantage of the short time I had between students from my class leaving and students from the next class filing in, "Miss Pryde, why are you working with me on my powers?" I asked her outright, "I mean, I get that it's not really a control thing with me. More like a resource management thing, but you already teach a class with me in it."

She didn't seem offended or defensive about it, instead smiling at me, "I advise one of the student squads, and one of my kids say you have to be on our team. She said it a few days before you even showed up on my class roster," Wow. Weird, "Now, I'm not going to just take her word for it, but I've been observing you for a while in class and when you're training your powers. I don't think it's such a bad idea."

An X-Men training squad? Me? I wanted to call bullshit on the spot. I wanted to yell and cheer about it. That was incredible news.

"I can't fight," I told her, and I wanted myself to shut up. Why was I trying to convince her not to take me on?

"What do you think the squads are for?" She replied, "They're to _train_ potential X-Men. Trust me, I'll teach you how to fight."

She seemed so confident about it. And it _was_ what I'd come to the Institute to learn in the first place, to at the very least learn how to defend myself. That didn't make me any less nervous about the idea, but my nerves were more excitement and disbelief than real fear.

XxX

A few years before I showed up, the Institute was just a school. It was a place for kids with powers that they couldn't safely control or hide. A safe place.

As it turns out, this school was not fucking safe. At all.

It had been attacked more times than most students knew, and I'd heard about at least three separate instances from them since I'd been there.

Well, after one of the last few times (we'd been attacked _again_ since this move was made), all students were to be taught at least basic self-defense, and everyone was to be taught how to master their powers.

Some students in particular that volunteered and showed an aptitude for what was needed were offered the chance to be X-Men and go through their training program.

I had done none of this. I was asked to join by one of the X-Men in charge of a student team, with only two weeks of standard self-defense and power-control courses under my belt.

I felt so out of place as I was led into a gigantic metal room. It looked like it was the size of an empty, full-scale arena, with some kind of big, weird platform in the middle. It looked kind of like a round stage.

Waiting there were three other students, all wearing similar uniforms to mine. I tugged at the weird form-fitting outfit. It had a light and dark blue color scheme. Design-wise, everyone else's seemed a bit different in some way.

When we walked up, two of the students stared at me, not helping with my sense of self-consciousness. The third one was Ruth. Huh. Go figure. Seriously, how the hell was she on a _combat_ team if she couldn't even see? As for the other two students, one was a Japanese girl with long black hair. The other was a lanky boy with red hair that would have been better defined as the bedhead-special.

"Hey Miss Pryde," He said, taking note of my presence, "So this is the new guy?"

Miss Pryde grinned at him and leaned over on me with her forearm on my shoulder. Man, she was short. Or maybe I was just tall? "So new. Super-new. Still got that new kid smell and everything," She told her team, "This is Bellamy."

The Japanese girl crossed her arms over her chest and looked me over, pursing her lips in thought. It didn't seem like she knew what to make of this, "I don't know what I was expecting when Ruth kept saying things about some 'Bellamy' person."

"All good things, I hope," I said, waving at Ruth until I realized that she couldn't see me, "She's pretty much the only person I've had any kind of conversation with since I've been here."

"How's that been?"

"Really confusing."

"Yep."

Professor Pride moved between the four of us to make sure she had all of our attention, "Since we're all going to be working together, why don't we introduce ourselves and give each other a little rundown of what we can all do," She turned to me "I'll start for the benefit of our new guy. My name is Kitty Pryde. Shadowcat in the field. My power is intangibility."

To demonstrate, she sank partially into the floor down to her knees before reemerging. I had already seen her come through a wall before, so I wasn't surprised. It was still a neat power.

"I can pass through walls, gunfire… pretty much anything," She continued to explain, "If I don't want it to touch me, it won't."

With that being said, the group fell silent. I figured she was leaving the floor open for someone else to introduce themselves, so I decided to pick up where I left off. It wasn't like I was shy about who I was or what I did.

"Well, as you guys know already, I'm Bellamy. Bellamy Marcher," I said, shrugging before I gave the best explanation of my powers that I could, "I absorb light and then do… stuff with it," I didn't mean to be vague on purpose. Just saying that I could fire energy blasts and use light like instant steroids didn't sound as cool as it actually was in practice.

My offer was enough of an olive branch extension for the others to jump on in, "Hisako Ichiki," The Japanese girl said simply, giving me her name, "I can create psionic armor to fight with."

As a demonstration, a blue armor made of some kind of raw energy formed around Hisako. Her body was safely insulated inside with plenty of space between the core where she was and the outside world. That was pretty damn cool. I always thought she had the most useful power out of all of us.

"Whoa," The stupid part of me that wanted to know what it felt like told me to reach out and touch it, so I did.

"Hey, hands off!"

Unfortunately, the place where I put my hand was where her chest would have been had the armor not been there. Had Miss Pryde not put her hand on my shoulder at that moment, I probably would have felt what it was like to get punched in the face with superpowers a lot sooner than I did. Her armored fist passed right through me. It was a weird feeling.

"Easy, now!" Miss Pryde said, putting herself between me and Hisako before she could try to hit me again.

"I'm so sorry!" I apologized, wincing at all of the good such a thing would have done after I'd basically groped her. I was assuming that she had in fact felt that much, "I just wanted to see what it felt like! Not your boobs, I mean! I was talking about the armor!"

I am just so fantastic at those first impressions. I don't think Hisako ever quite forgave me for that one.

The lone other male in the group had a good laugh at her expense. He must have had a pretty good rapport with her to get away with it, but he seemingly didn't care. Wiping a tear away from his eye, he introduced himself.

"Eddie Tancredi," He said before pointing to himself as he slowly lifted off of the floor into the air, "The best flyer out of any student in the whole system, just so you know."

My kind of introduction. Whether it was true or it wasn't, he seemed like a good-natured kind of guy.

"Nice to meet you, Bellamy," Eddie landed, walked up, and gave me a pat on the back, "It's good to finally have another guy in the group. Try not to have Hisako kill you before we even have our first team session, would you?"

Hisako rolled her eyes and corrected her teammate, "Seriously though, it's good to have another person in the group, period," She was still mad at me, but at least she recognized that I'd be useful, what with my awesome powers and all, "We were totally undermanned until now."

"How undermanned?" I asked. I had not heard anything about that before I'd agreed to come to the meeting, "…Just for curiosity's sake."

Professor Pride chuckled and answered for me, "Most of the other student squads have six students. We've made do with three until now. You bring us to a grand total of four, that is, if you decided to join. It's still your choice."

"You were fighting other squads 3-on-6 until now?"

"Well, not fighting them directly. You'll almost never do that. More like, competing in mock missions, or just comparing scores from team exercises."

That was still terrible for them! The obvious advantage numbers would give every other squad in almost any kind of mission setting, exercises were likely based somewhat on speed, and speed was probably weighed heavily in whatever scoring system they had. Of course teams with more manpower would finish their tasks sooner.

I had to ask the obvious question, "Why did you have a team with three kids if almost everybody else had six?"

Miss Pryde chuckled in a dark sort of way that I hadn't come to expect from her, "Because the headmistress is a bitch," Hearing that was a surprise. Miss Pryde until then had always been strict, but never really vulgar. It must have shown on my face, because she elaborated, "Emma Frost and I aren't fond of each other. It's a very long story."

I didn't know how much of an understatement this was at the time. I didn't even know other superheroes could hate each other. I would learn. Oh, dear God would I learn.

At the time though, I didn't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, and there was one member of the team who hadn't said anything yet, despite wearing a very pleased smile on her blindfolded face, "So I saw what everyone else can do already," I said, walking up to Ruth. I was already kind of familiar with her, "What are your powers?"

I had never asked her before because it seemed rude. I don't know. It didn't sound stupid in my head, I swear! I thought it was part of some kind of mutant etiquette. For all I knew, there were people who would take offense to me asking that question, and with my luck I would have run into them my very first time asking!

Ruth wasn't offended, she reached out and grabbed one of my hands with both of hers. What an odd girl, "You do not need to be so nervous, Bellamy. No. Yes, pardon me, she already knows you will be a wonderful teammate. Thank you."

I laughed, trying to play off what she'd just said. I couldn't have been that easy to read, "I'm not nervous."

"You talk and smile a lot when you are nervous, yes."

Goddamn it. How did she even know I was smiling? She couldn't SEE!

Eddie sighed and leaned over Ruth, planting his hands on her shoulders from behind, "…Ruth's powers are… eh. Psychic powers are freaking weird, man," He looked down at the girl, frowning down at her head, "It's really annoying getting your mind read all the time."

"So she can read minds?" I said, figuring she must have picked up on how I was feeling that way. That helped a few things make sense. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"She can also see the future, to a certain degree," Miss Pryde told me, "It's very useful, but confusing. Sometimes we can figure it out, and sometimes it sneaks up on us, kind of like with you. She's the one who told us you would be on this team in the first place, before you ever even came here."

Something about hearing that you were supposed to be somewhere was encouraging. That even if it was just blind, random chance in reality, someone was waiting on you to show up to do something, it made you feel good.

I laughed, none too humbly, "It's destiny. I was destined to be here and take this team to all new heights!" I crowed aloud, "…Does this team even have a name or a number? Are we Team 5 or something?"

"The Paladins."

It had a ring to it, kind of. It sort of seemed like it was a little 'try hard'. After I heard all of the squad names, it felt like the people who came up with them were usually trying too hard.

"Huh. Not bad," I said, before clapping my hands and rubbing them together in anticipation, "Now I don't know about you guys, but I came here to learn how to not die. I'm all suited and booted. The quicker we can make me not suck in a fight, the better."

As if I needed the motivation, Eddie was right there hyping me up further, shoving me around, "Yeah! I hear you! Don't be the anchor dragging us down, man!"

Eddie could have been an awesome hype-man. If I hadn't been jazzed before, I definitely was after a few good shoves. It wasn't even fake. I was bouncing in place, raring to go, "I'm ready. It's what I came here to do in the first place. Hit me with your best shot," Wrong choice of words, as Hisako armored up her right arm and drew it back for a punch, "No! I meant with the training, not literally!"

XxX

It helped to think of training as P.E. class, only turned up to eleven. Such an idea wasn't really that far from the truth, really, given the fact that most kids used their powers during gym too. It was just that, in most of our gym classes there weren't dangerous holograms trying to kill us all.

You had to compartmentalize when it came to the training, or at least I did, because it was insane.

I flinched hard at the sound of an energy blast coming from a 20 foot purple and blue robot from where I was taking cover alongside Ruth. She wasn't exactly a combatant, and I wasn't trained particularly well yet, so we were meant to watch and wait for an opportunity for the most part.

In other words, I was basically her bodyguard and the last resort, at least for this session. I was working as hard as I could to get up to speed in the two weeks I had been on the squad, but to say that I could carry the lion's share of work at any given moment would have been an expectation that I probably couldn't have met.

We did alright for the little bit we'd been given earlier. There had been some human foot soldiers sent out way. Ruth had been able to pinpoint their location by reading their minds, and I had ambushed the bejesus out of them. Almost no collateral damage. Barely a single shot fired when they retaliated.

Small Captain Morgan pose for victory.

That being said, thirty minutes after that part of the mission, it was annoying just sitting back and hiding during the deciding moments of the simulation, mainly because in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't going to help any of us.

"Why are we even hiding?" I asked aloud as I took cover from a 'safe' distance with Ruth, "This thing can sense where we are. After it's done with them, it's coming straight for us. Then we're really screwed."

I got my answer from the cosmos themselves apparently, but it was just from the Danger Room's observation area, _"I'll stop the program when it looks too far-gone. I don't expect you to win."_

There might not have been anything worse she could have said to me at that point in the simulation, "What the fuck do you mean, you don't expect us to win!?"

" _I want you to get used to dealing with odds that aren't in your favor,"_ She explained, not seeing the problem with what she'd told me. _"That's the way they'll usually be if you need to be called in to begin with, so I want you to be prepared."_

I hated losing. The only thing I hated more than losing was the thought of failing at something before I'd even gotten to try.

I put my hand up to the communicator in my ear to reach out to the others, "Wing!" I said to my airborne teammate. I could see him in the air, a flying Sentinel in hot pursuit. Those things could move for gigantic robots, "Come get me!"

" _Kinda busy right now, Sol!"_

Sol was short for Solaris. As in, pertaining to the sun. Get it? Because I absorb light… and the sun is the most bountiful source of light on Earth. Haha! Whoever came up with that must have been a genius, _Eddie_.

I hated that name, but I had no luck coming up with my own, so that was what I was given.

"Fine, where's Armor?"

" _Not up here! Look down!"_

I was able to spot her, not too far away from where the Sentinel was chasing Wing in the air. She was on the ground, trying to follow along underneath on-foot. There wasn't much she could do but try and stay close, "Gotcha. Come on," I said to Ruth, grabbing her hand, "Stay with me! We're moving!"

Surprisingly, the city block that had been created in the Danger Room as our battlefield hadn't been too terribly destroyed. Sure, a few buildings were missing some walls, and the corner that had been blown off of that one complex was going to compromise its structural integrity until someone tore it down, but for a bunch of stupid kids, I felt like we were doing fine.

When Ruth and I made it to Hisako, she wasn't particularly enthused to see us. Probably because the plan had the two of us staying far away from the heart of the conflict.

"Sol, what the hell?" She demanded to know.

I pointed up at the Sentinel still trying to shoot Eddie out of the sky, "Throw me at that stupid thing."

Hisako's eyes lit up for a moment. If it was any other situation, she probably wouldn't have needed any explanation as to why this was a fair course of action. However, in the middle of a scored simulation, logic took hold, "As much as that would make my day right now, why?"

I pointed at myself, more specifically, my blue eyes.

By that time I had learned that my eye color correlated to how much juice I was working with. If I was low on energy, my eyes were red. Yellow meant I had a decent amount of power. Not much, but enough to be okay with doing things. Green meant I was in good shape. When my eyes were blue, I started feeling really itchy, fidgety, and uncomfortable.

"I'm overcharged, but I can't shoot it from here and hit it. It's moving too much," I told Hisako before I pointed at the Sentinal shooting energy blasts at Wing in the air, "Giant flying robot that you can't touch to tear apart," I pointed at Wing himself, "Flying guy with no other powers," I felt like I'd said all that I needed to, " _Throw me_."

Being grabbed by one of Hisako's armor arms felt strange. It was like being grabbed by nothing. No heat, no cold, just the feeling of restraint around you, which made sense because the armor was psionic. Mental energy wasn't material, so it wasn't like it would have traditional physical properties to it.

I felt like a cannonball all loaded up and ready to be fired, but I just had to make sure everything would go as smoothly as I needed it to.

"For the love of God, don't throw me like a girl," I said as I felt her cock her arm back to send me flying, "Throw me right."

I could feel the grip around me tighten a bit as Hisako turned her head to look at me, "What?"

There was more ice on her tone than Mr. Drake's backside.

Hisako was not pleased, but she could be as mad as she wanted to be. She wasn't the one who was about to be launched by a girl in mental power armor. Her posture for throwing me seemed off if I had plans on actually getting anywhere near the Sentinel. I wanted to make sure this was actually going to work, seeing as how we were only going to have one shot.

"Don't throw me like a girl. Throw me right!" I said with all of the miniscule authority I could muster, "If you throw me like shit and I go head-over-heels I'm not gonna be able to control myself or even see where I'm going. I still need to blast the damn thing, which means I need to see where I'm going so I can aim."

She seemed like she was a thought away from spiking me into the ground like a football, "You know, you're not in charge and you're not as smart as you think you are. I'm getting sick of your mouth."

I wasn't trying to be the smartest guy in the room. I saw a solution and if I was being a dick it was to best get my point across. It had worked for me so far.

Either way, we could argue semantics all day long afterwards, but at the moment, we were on the clock, "Be as sick as you want, just keep your goddamn wrist straight!" I snapped, "Throw, woman!"

And throw she did. I'm pretty sure a big part of her was hoping that she'd missed so that I'd go splat, but her aim was true enough to get me where I needed to be.

Damn, she had good aim. Either that, or Eddie saw me coming and guided it into my path. I barely had time to pump as much power as I could to my hands before I barreled right through the Sentinel's head, blowing it clean apart with a close-range shot. Chunks of metal and computer guts flew everywhere.

Great. We killed it… or deactivated it… or whatever you did to robots. One problem solved.

The next thing to take care of was my little falling problem, because I didn't have wings.

Any excitement I had over actually contributing to a successful objective for once quickly faded when I realized that gravity was a thing.

"Mission's over! Stop the simulation!" I yelled, as I saw myself hurtling back to earth at an alarming rate, "Off! End! Stop! Anything!"

My voice may have cracked.

Before I could hit the ground, a pair of arms put me in a full nelson, "Tancredi backs up all the way to the wall! It's almost gone, and he makes the catch! The crowd goes wild!"

Fast Eddie for the win.

The rest of the way down was comparatively gentle as Eddie guided me. Enough so that as he descended I could touch the ground with my kicking feet and come to a running stop, or a tripping and falling one at least.

Face down, ass up. It was not a graceful landing.

The feel of the ground changed from rough, uneven concrete to cold, smooth metal as laughter filled the Danger Room.

"So if I throw like a girl, does that mean you scream like one?" Fair enough. Hisako had to get her shot in while she could.

I pushed myself off of the floor with as much dignity as I could. What did I really have to be ashamed of, after all? I helped put a Sentinel down. That had to mean something, "If screaming like a girl means you fight like a champion, then yes, I screamed like a girl."

Eddie flew around us aimlessly in the air trying to work the kinks out of his arms, "I need to lift more weights," He said, "I almost dislocated my shoulders trying to catch you like that."

"In the NFL, that would not have counted as a catch," I said, touching at an abrasion on the side of my face. That was going to leave some road rash scabs later, "You didn't maintain possession all the way to the ground. That was a drop."

Eddie scoffed and flipped me the middle finger as he landed, "You're lucky it wasn't a 'splat'."

Our X-Men advisor Miss Pryde walked into the room all smiles. It was nice to see that something I'd had a hand in could make someone proud of me. Not enough of that going around lately.

"Well, it wasn't pretty, or safe, but you got the job done in the end, so way to go!" She applauded as she walked up to the four of us. It was then that she noticed the scowl on my face, "What's wrong with you, Sol?"

Oh, she could try and church it up with a pretty smile all she wanted to now. I didn't forget what she'd said earlier, "I'm still mad at you. You were expecting us to lose!"

Miss Pryde rolled her eyes at my ability to hold a grudge. What did she expect? It hadn't even been fifteen minutes, "Four students aren't expected to be able to take on two Sentinels their first time around!" It wasn't that easy to get me off of her back. I just stared at her until she felt uncomfortable enough to say more, "You're not the only ones who've done this simulation."

I felt my eyebrow automatically go up in curious interest, "And how many of the others failed it so far?" I asked.

You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

"Ten."

"Out of?"

She hesitated, "…Nineteen," For good reason, because after hearing that, I was livid.

"You didn't think we could pass a test with a 48% success rate?"

Once again, Hisako saw her chance to take a jab, and I couldn't begrudge her the opportunity, "Ooh, you can do basic math?"

"Making a point here, Armor!" I said to her before looking to Miss Pryde again, "As far as odds go, that's not even that bad!"

Yes, they weren't the best odds. Definitely not a sure thing. But it was damn near 50-50! I'd put my money on myself if the chances of success were that high.

Apparently being fussed at by a high school kid, even one with superpowers, wasn't even close to enough to make Miss Pryde fret, "To be fair, there are less of you, and your powers aren't nearly as destructive as some of the other training squads," She gestured to me and Hisako, "You and Armor have the only powers that can be considered offensive."

The two of us looked at each other and frowned. At least, I saw her frown. I'm pretty sure I did too, but the throbbing from the side of my face made it hard to know for sure.

"…Alright. Good point. I'll accept that."

"I'm _so_ glad."

Sarcasm was unbecoming of a person in a position of authority. That being said, it was part of what made Miss Pryde an awesome teacher.

"Hey, telepathy is offensive," Eddie chimed in, poking Ruth's shoulder for emphasis, "I'm offended every time Blindfold reads my mind."

"Man, don't pick on Ruth," I said, moving over to the girl we were talking about to throw an arm around her, "She's the only one out of you three that actually wants me on the team."

"I want you on the team," Hisako said, "We didn't have any meat shields until you got here."

"If anyone's a meat shield it's you. That's basically what your power makes you good for."

"Better than a power that doesn't work if it's overcast outside or the sun goes down."

"Shows what you know. Clouds don't affect it _that_ much, and the moon still gives off _some_ light that I can use, so bite me."

It was hard to figure out just how pissed off at me Hisako was at any given moment. We argued all the time, but I never really felt any sort of real animosity toward her. It was just… automatic. I did honestly like her as a person. I thought her powers were cool, and it was nice that there was someone my stupid jokes annoyed enough to banter back at me.

Talking to brick wall excuses for living beings wasn't fun.

Eddie and I would egg each other on when it came to being stupid, and that was great and all, but there was something to be said for the challenge that came with going back and forth with someone and trying to come out on top.

You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

XxX

My vision slowly came back into focus, giving me a good view of the gym floor… with drops of red on it. The coppery taste of blood sat on my tongue. I ran my tongue over the fresh cut that had opened on the inside of my bottom lip and winced.

On one knee, I looked over and saw Mr. Logan stood a short ways away looking bored. Sorry if my pugilistic endeavors weren't enough to tickle your fancy, you psycho.

Mr. Logan, or Wolverine as he's otherwise known, was the main self-defense teacher. Yes, the guy who met me and got into a severe car accident because of my driving within five minutes of making my acquaintance was the person who was in charge of beating me to a pulp… or teaching me how to fight.

"Get back up, kid. Your round's not over yet," He demanded, gesturing to the clock that still had a little more than three minutes left on it. I had been failing epically for less than two to try and land as many good shots on him as I could.

I hate losing. I don't know if I've said this enough.

Eventually I got sick of it and decided, hey, I can take a few shots just as long as I get to land one good one. Just one, good enough for me to hear his jaw click or all of the air fly out of his gut. That was a mistake I wouldn't forget anytime soon.

Ever felt what it's like to get punched in the face by a guy with an adamantium-coated skeleton? Padded headgear only does so much to protect your head from something like that. He might as well have used a bat. Thank God I had a mouthpiece in.

I hopped back up to my feet to try and make a show that I wasn't actually hurt, "Don't knock my teeth out," I requested, carefully sliding back toward with my hands up and my chin tucked low.

He made a show of slipping my punches without even moving his feet before he popped me in the forehead with two solid jabs and got out of my way, "Move your head more. Just keeping your hands up won't help if you don't make yourself a harder target."

There were about two minutes left. I was going to get the most out of it, even if it only entailed me getting my ass kicked. I hate losing, even if it's against someone in something I have no chance it.

Every other day, students could attend self-defense classes. Strictly hand-to-hand. No powers. It was optional to take. Even if you weren't interested in it, everyone learned the basics and practiced with each other. For those of us who did have an interest, we were given more hands-on instruction.

We would actually fight the teacher. Oh, joy of joys.

It had been the first time that I'd been to the advanced class, and I was excited. I volunteered first, because I was full of energy, which was a mistake. Knowing how to protect yourself a bit did not prepare you for something even as light as a spar against the Wolverine.

I pressed forward again. His footwork that he'd been teaching us over the past few weeks had done all of nothing for me to get him out of position, but he said to keep moving, so I that was what I did. Even though he'd been punching with the same speed and force as the one that had dropped me minutes before, he didn't land another clean blow for the rest of the round.

Small victories, though. With seconds left on the clock, his arms stopped defending quite as tightly around his stocky body as before, and his chin stopped being tucked so tightly to his chest. It was an opening that I jumped all over, even though it could have been a trap. What was the worst that could happen? He'd hit me again? I was already bleeding.

I jumped in and landed a hard roundhouse kick to the body and a hard follow-up jab as I straightened back up. The alarm signaling the end of the round went off, and every bump and bruise he'd given me over the last five minutes started throbbing at once painfully with every beat of my heart.

He totally let me have that one. I knew it. But I really didn't care. Actually making solid contact almost made me do a little dance while I was pulling off my gloves and headgear. That had been a brutal experience, and a nifty little introduction into real fist-fighting.

I passed a kid black kid my age with glasses who was next up to take on Mr. Logan.

"Your turn," I said, smiling at him. He nodded at me gravely and leveled his focus on the instructor that had kicked me to and fro for the last five minutes. Following that was probably an unenviable position, but how could anyone wind up much worse than I did?

I sat down on the sideline, ignoring the quiet laughs from some of the other guys in the room and dabbed at my nose and mouth, pulling my hand away to see the skin coated in my own blood. My nose felt like it was on fire, and I wasn't going to be eating anything with salt until the cut in my mouth closed up.

"Do any of those hurt?"

I looked over and saw some of the other students that were sitting in on the advanced hand-to-hand course. Thus far, most of my student interaction had come from Hisako, Eddie, and Ruth, because I was on their squad. Most others didn't bother saying much to me, because why would they? There was no reason to. I wasn't particularly interesting. I didn't come with some kind of backstory as to why I was there that was so novel everyone had to take notice. I was just… there.

The question came from a girl with brown hair done in a long ponytail. She spoke with a slight accent that led me to believe she came from some sort of Spanish-speaking country. Her name was Sofia. I'd heard it used enough that day to remember.

"Uh, you're gonna have to tell me what all of 'those' are," I said, frowning. I could see her cringing as she looked my way directly while I was talking. I must have been quite the sight, "I only know about the nose and the mouth."

She looked at who I figured was her friend, a blond girl who seemed markedly more hesitant to look at the mess that was my face. She must have been more timid, "Your nose, mouth, eye, and God knows where else you got hit that we can't see," Sofia said.

"Yes. All of it hurts."

I would feel better after I slept, if what Dr. McCoy told me before was correct. That in of itself was another problem, but one thing at a time.

"So is this normal, or did I just catch him on a really bad day?" I asked, continuing to make conversation as the other kid from before did his sparring round. To my consternation, he did a lot better technique-wise than I did, and it looked like Logan went a lot easier on him than he did on me.

"I don't know. It's definitely not normal," Sofia told me, watching the match as it progressed, "Mr. Logan never beat one of us that badly during a spar before. He would normally just correct us when our form was wrong and continue."

Well he certainly did that for me, if 'correcting my form' meant beating me to a pulp every time I gave him a big enough opening to do so.

"What?" I asked, sort of put off by the idea of being singled out during something as painful as combat practice, "Is… is this like a new guy initiation/hazing thing?"

"I don't think so," Sofia asked, her features scrunching up in what I figured was concern, "Are you certain you're alright?"

Don't look like a punk in front of the girls, Bel. You're a manly gentleman.

"I'm like 60% sure he pulled his punches," I said, trying to focus on the fight and see what this guy was doing that I wasn't that kept Mr. Logan from wailing on him the way he did to me, "I kicked the guy - hard. He barely budged. He's rock-solid. If he'd actually wanted to lay me out, he would have."

I heard a faint 'VRRRR' humming noise and felt a slap against the back of my head. I turned in the direction it came from and saw one of the other guys in the line with a green glow around his hand. Sofia turned to glare at him, only getting what he likely considered a charming grin in return.

"Is _that_ a new guy initiation/hazing thing?" I asked, annoyed, but not flinching or even bothering to rub my head from the contact.

"That's a 'Keller' thing." A blue-haired Asian girl sitting nearby said, scoffing at the juvenile antics of some of the other guys in the class, "You never really get used to that."

Yeah, sometimes it was easy to forget that the Xavier Institute was still a place full of dumbass, impulsive kids. Not all mature, cool, and level-headed like me.

I tried to piece it all together on the spot before I hauled off and shot at him from fifteen feet away over a lineup of people.

This guy thought Sofia was hot, and probably figured I was making some kind of move on her. Not likely, but that was what he thought. Top-of-the-food-chain guys like him never thought any further than a step or two in any direction. He clearly had some kind of crew/posse/unit/whatever-the-fuck-people-were-calling-themselves-these-days, and those guys basically saw me just get my ass handed to me, painting a big ol' target of vulnerability on my back.

Clearly, superhero high school was still high school, complete with all of the familiar dressings and trappings.

Fun times were soon to be had by all.

XxX

One of my worst problems was passing the time.

Not during the day, I mean. There was plenty to do between classes: exploring the Institute, squad training, and more. No shortage of interesting activities there.

Nighttime was a different beast altogether.

When curfew hit, we all had to be inside of our rooms. That was fine, because most people actually slept. Not so much for me, because I was effectively rendered an insomniac courtesy of my powers. The nature of them made it much harder for me to feel physical fatigue.

If I went outside where the amount of energy I took in wasn't so bad at night, I could get myself down from green to red in an hour or so if I didn't stop for anything. But by the time I walked across campus, through the dorm and back to my room to get myself ready to go to bed, my eyes would be yellow again.

Eventually, I just stopped trying to sleep. If it happened, it happened. It was a waste of time to try, and if staying up wound up tiring me out, great! That was the point. It never did though. In the few weeks I had been at the Institute, I had only had more than three hours of sleep once.

It made homework a lot less of a worry. I could knock it out whenever I wanted to. Say for instance, three o'clock in the morning. Why not? It wasn't like there was much else to do.

Fighting the still life became too much to keep at bay with the _riveting_ pastime of studying to use as a weapon against it. One night when I ventured outside of my quarters, I learned that the aforementioned curfew was only as effective as the guards who were awake to enforce it.

As long as I wasn't stupid and didn't decided that running amok on the lawns where all of the goddamn motion sensors and security measures were set up, I had my run of the place.

It was a nice environment for nighttime walks. The air was fresh and clean. It was quiet. What more could you ask for?

…Some entertainment, for one, but a nice stroll around the premises was good enough on most given nights. Beggars couldn't really be choosers.

"Kind of late to be up and about, isn't it?" I heard someone call out to me before I got to the entrance of the hedge maze. From inside, Mr. Logan stepped out, dressed in his more casual attire of jeans and flannel. He nonchalantly lit a cigar as he stepped towards me. Silence reigned until he got enough of his fill of tobacco to raise the point again, "Well? I'm waiting? You got an excuse?"

"H-Have you been watching me this whole time?" I asked, trying to gauge how much trouble I was in.

"I can smell you moving around some nights. Never seem to be up to anything, but the moment you let your guard down around here, something bad happens. So, what are you doing, kid?" He asked again, "The curfew is actually for _your_ protection."

"I can't sleep. Ever," I said bluntly, laying my cards on the table. If I wound up on someone's shit list, so be it. These were extenuating circumstances in my opinion, "I can get like, an hour at most, even if I wear myself down as much as I can. Then I'll just wake right back up."

"A little young to have insomnia, ain'tcha?"

"It's how my powers work," I held up my hand, making it to glow to show him what I could do, "I absorb light. Even moonlight. I haven't gotten around to getting to town to buy curtains that'll shut out the light completely."

"Neat."

"Yeah, I like it. Most of the time, anyway. Side-effect, because there's always light, I'm always charged. I miss sleep."

"And I know how important a good night's rest is for you growing boys."

I blocked a laugh with a snort. Dignified, "So, I'm just gonna ask, because I'm curious. Whether you feel like answering or not… meh," I was already in trouble and thought that he didn't think much of me in the first place. Making it worse wasn't really an issue, "Did I do something to piss you off? Like the car crash. Was that it?"

He seemed confused until a look of realization crossed his face, "This about me stomping eight shades of shit outta you earlier?" He ventured.

"It's about you stomping eight shades of shit out of me… sir."

He took his time to answer. I hadn't taken Mr. Logan as someone who measured his words carefully when I first met him, "I didn't bust you up because I don't like ya. I really don't care one way or the other. I've had enough kids around here latch onto me. Don't really need one more," He explained coolly, "I did what I did because you're one of the only ones takin' it serious."

I thought he was screwing with me at first, "What? You mean the training?" I thought it went without saying that I would. When people were punching at your face, it was intelligent to put your best foot forward, "You told me to fight you. Of course, I'm taking it serious."

"And that's what I'm talkin' about. Everyone else treats it like a class, which it is, but… grr… you know what I mean."

I did. Even most of the students in the advanced course didn't take it that seriously. On the sidelines they would chat and screw around until it was their turn, possibly because of the thought that a teacher would never really hurt them. Maybe it was because I didn't really have any friends in the class, or because I was really interested in the nuances of how to hit and not be hit, but I paid rapt attention.

"What about that one kid, David?" I asked, remembering one of the kids from earlier who did quite well from what I saw, "He did much better than me."

To my surprise, Mr. Logan shook his head, taking a moment to breathe out the smoke from his cigar grumpily, "He's really not learning anything in there. Just standing near me, he knows everything about fighting that I do as long as he's around. S'how his powers work," The man told me, "He'd get a better feel for fighting that'd be more useful to him during team sims than working with me. Nothing'll ever stick because he'll lose it as soon as we get far enough apart. You though. It looked like you wanted to fight. You actually try to pick up what I'm hammering into your head, even when I'm literally hammering it into your head."

Well yeah. That was the entire reason I started attending the school in the first place; to learn how to not get beaten to a pulp by the bad guys, "I'm at superhero school. If I had problems with getting slapped around a bit, I probably signed up for the wrong thing."

Mr. Logan gave me a lopsided grin, his teeth chomping a cigar, "Just needed to make sure," He seemed somehow satisfied by what I'd been saying since the conversation started, "Figured you were gonna tell until the day ended and I hadn't gotten an earful. If I'd have bloodied anyone else's nose like yours, I'd have been sitting in an office having a conversation with Slim and Frost about being too hard on the students."

"I'm no wuss," I replied. Did I really give off the impression that I would snitch instead of trying to solve my own problems? And that wasn't even a real problem. It was just a trial to deal with, "Just as long as I can learn something while you're ripping me to shreds in front of all the other kids, I'll deal with it. I can't wait to make your face look like you did mine. One day."

"Feel free to use that receipt… whenever you're good enough," He said, basically challenging me to get good enough to rearrange his face on my own terms, "…What are you doing right now?"

I looked around at the empty courtyard we were in. Not even the sprits of the dead X-Men and other students that probably haunted the place were awake at that hour, " _Not_ sleeping," I said with a shrug.

"Want to try again right now?"

And that was how I found a new way to spend certain nights when I couldn't sleep: getting my ass handed to me by Wolverine. Apparently he got just as bored as I did at three o'clock in the morning.

Recreational drinking and smoking had to lose its luster at some point, I guess.

XxX

My face had looked worse than it actually was after Mr. Logan had beaten me up the day before. The blood had been the most graphic thing about it after I had washed it all off. Even without the overnight recovery that an actual good night's sleep would have provided me, I had mostly recovered by the next morning, leaving only a few decent bruises behind.

There weren't enough on me to get odd looks from any teachers of students, so I just went about my day going to all of my classes until I was needed elsewhere near the end of the day.

On my way to my destination, I stopped off and grabbed an apple from the cafeteria to munch on while I walked across campus. As I reached the courtyard, a green glow surrounded my apple and yanked it out of my hand, sending it flying somewhere far off-campus with a low-pitched humming noise attached to it.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said louder than I intended. It was just an apple, but it had been a good apple with plenty of crunch to it and everything. I had been enjoying that.

After the day before, I didn't need to turn and look for the person responsible to know who did it. I saw the guilty party walking my way flanked by two other members of his usual crew.

I had been given a quick synopsis of who they were after hand-to-hand training by the blue-haired Japanese girl, Noriko. She was clearly not a fan of them.

The Puerto Rican kid with dreads was Brian Cruz, aka Tag. He was basically the ringleader's number one running buddy with a weird power. Apparently, when he touched someone, he used a form of telepathy that could either repel them away from something, toward something, attract others to them. It was a really convoluted explanation.

The giant guy made of rock was Santo Vaccarro. He was a big-ass rock golem. That was his power. Superhuman strength, as durable as a solid rock structure, basically what you could imagine. According to Noriko, he was the heavy of his squad. That much was easy to see. He was massive, and I was pretty sure that one hit from him would turn me to paste.

That led us to the main man. The one who put the Hellion in the Hellions squad: Julian Keller. Rich, tall, dark, and handsome, with powers that were way too overpowered for someone like him to have. He was telekinetic.

That much should have went without saying by now.

"What do you want?" I asked, still holding up my hand as though there were an apple in it. Hopefully that properly conveyed my annoyance at the situation, "What do you need? What?"

I was irrationally angry about getting an apple yanked out of my hand and thrown a mile away. It was just a stupid apple. No big deal.

…But I wanted it.

When people did things like that to you, you weren't supposed to visibly react. That was what I was taught. Retaliate in your own way later if your pride felt the need to, but don't react and give them the immediate satisfaction – at least, that was what dad said. Thanks dad.

"That was just Julian's way of saying hello," Santo said, grinning at me. It was a weird sight, but hey, open mind.

"You were getting awfully friendly with Sofia yesterday at practice," Julian said, looking at me as though he were turning his nose up.

Okay, my hypothesis and Noriko's rundown of the Julian guy had been correct. He wanted the hot girl I was talking to about getting my ass kicked. So this was about staking his claim? I didn't have time for this. Maybe later, but not right at that moment.

"I'm a people person. I try to be at least," I replied, "Seeing as how I'm on a first-name basis with only three people at this place so far, I figured it was a good idea to introduce myself to more people. Branch out, you know? Like this," I said, reaching out a hand in an effort to extend an olive branch, "Hi, I'm Be-."

"Yeah, I don't care," Julian said, cutting me off without even bothering to look at my hand, "You might want to find someone else to get friendly with. There are plenty of losers for you to sidle up to."

That was what I got for trying to bury the hatchet, "Or…?" As if I needed to be told.

"Just some advice. I'd hate for things to get hard for you around here."

"I probably wouldn't," Santo said, stepping up closer to tower over me, "I wonder what his powers even are."

"Probably something useless," Julian laughed, "At least Alleyne's lame powers kept him from getting a beatdown as bad as this guy got. He probably doesn't even have a squad. Who'd want him after seeing that?" The reminder of seeing me in dire straits yesterday got Santo and Brian to chuckle at my expense.

I would have normally stood there to argue more, as I enjoyed a rousing set of banter now and again, but I had somewhere to be, and I was too mad to be a functional smartass. From there, I completely altered the path of the conversation, "Who's _your_ teacher-advisor?"

Julian seemed befuddled at first that I didn't react to his insult, but quickly recovered, swelling up pridefully, "We're on Miss Frost's Hellions, the top squad in the school. You really _must_ be new, huh?" It was easy to see why his head was so big. He was rich, his powers were awesome, and the school's headmistress had recruited him to be taught by her directly.

I nodded, a thoughtful look on my face as though I were contemplating what to do next. There had been no contemplation. I'd decided what I was going to do the second my apple got launched, "Good. That means I'll get in less trouble for this than I probably should from _my_ advisor."

I quickly pointed my hands in a pair of fists at both Julian and Santo. The former barely had time to react and put up a weak telekinetic film around himself before I fired both cannons and knocked them clear off of their feet.

Brian was too stunned to react to outright defend his friends. Instead he ran to their sides, making sure they were both alright.

Was it petty of me to blast both of those guys in the chest and send them flying halfway across the lawn? Yes. But it was incredibly cathartic. Plus, they could take it. One had a telekinetic force field and the other was literally made of rocks. They were fine. I sandbagged those shots anyway.

In the weeks I had been working with what I could do I had figured out more about my powers. If I fired a blast with my hands open, it exploded on contact. If I did it with my fists, it was concussive.

The more you know.

I knew what I'd been doing, and I'd also knew that sticking around after that was a bad idea. I wasn't getting a free shot twice if a fight broke out. I didn't run, but I definitely walked away briskly while Julian shook the cobwebs off.

"GODDAMN IT, WHERE ARE YOU!?"

I was halfway to the medical wing by the time Julian flew up into the air hollering for me to come out as he tried to spot me from above. Well, that plan failed epically. Showing him up in public only seemed to make the bullseye that had been painted on my chest flash red for him.

"THIS ISN'T OVER!"

Then again, I hadn't beaten him from pillar to post in front of enough people to emasculate him. It was more like I'd gotten a cheap shot in. I was probably going to pay for it later. But I wasn't right then. Live for the moment, and all that jazz.

I had a smile on my face all the way to the medical wing.

XxX

I wasn't as smooth as I thought I was. When I got to where I was headed that day, Emma Frost was waiting for me. Now, I'd never seen her in-person before, as our last encounter hadn't been face-to-face. When I first saw her, I wondered who the lady in the white bustier and cape was, until I heard her speak.

"Ah, Mr. Marcher. You wouldn't happen to know why Mister Keller was flying around the school asking about you, would you?"

Her voice rang familiar in my head, and quickly linked up with all of the other nifty info I'd been getting lately. My blood went cold and the smile was quickly wiped off of my face.

I figured I'd have had at least an hour before I got into trouble.

Whatever. She didn't have anything on me, as long as I played it cool I'd be fine, "Didn't even know he knew who I was," Which was true. Julian didn't know who I was, at least not when we confronted each other. He never said my name once, even when he was rampaging about in search of me.

Miss Frost raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't show that she knew anything more than I was saying, "So you didn't, oh… blast him and Mister Vaccarro in the face in the courtyard about ten minutes ago?"

"Sure didn't."

It wasn't in the face. It was in the chest, and it was a baby tap. I more or less shoved him down with my powers. Get it straight if you're going to accuse me of something.

"Don't be a smart-aleck, Mr. Marcher."

Oh, yeah. Telepath. Duh. She can read my mind and all of that good stuff.

"That's right, I am. I'm glad you remember."

Well, it's not like I lied to you. Everything I said was the truth.

"Withholding information is almost the exact same thing."

I stared at her long and hard, the only other verbal thought in my head at the moment being a pronounced, 'Really?' until I finally said something else, "…You know what? I think I'll just start saying whatever comes to mind around you. You're gonna read it anyway, so what does it matter?"

"And what are you thinking about saying right now?"

"That yes, I blew Julian and Santo away, and I'm not sorry," I started answering with no filter, "Those two wanted trouble. They got two barrels full."

"You realize that you're in quite a bit of trouble, don't you?"

"I was expecting to be in the middle of something else by the time anyone who cared found out."

"Yes, well 'best laid plans' and all that," Miss Frost said, sizing me up for whatever reason, "Seeing as how you have an appointment with Hank today, this will be all for now. Rest assured though, Mister Marcher, we will be having words about this later."

I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut and my thoughts limited to a simple, 'alright'. Seemingly pleased for the time being, she departed the room and left me alone.

"Oh, good afternoon, Emma."

"Hank, darling."

Dr. McCoy soon entered in her wake and fixed me with a pitying glance, "Oh, I was wondering what had her looking so miffed."

I let out a sigh. It seemed my luck was still running true with new people when it came to the headmistress of the entire school, "Oh, you know me, doctor. I'm just so great at those first impressions."

* * *

 **Man, random drug tests are fun, aren't they? Holding your bladder for hours because you know you're going to have to be expected to produce on-the-spot later, and then you have to put forth the effort to show self-control and** _ **not**_ **fill up the little cup they give you to use.**

 **Not out of courtesy for the drug test person or anything – they're wearing gloves – but because I really don't feel like getting pee on my hand. I mean, I know I can just wash 'em afterwards, but it never feels like it's enough.**

… **Yep. You all needed to share that with me. You're welcome.**

 **So, that's all I've got for you this time around. I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	3. Lessons To Learn

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or any particular Marvel properties. I wish there was another Marvel fighting game on consoles, just full of characters from all over. The last one I played that was really good was Marvel: Rise of the Imperfects on PS2.

I loved that game. Injustice was a sweet, sweet game full of DC characters. I feel like the same thing with Marvel could be just as great.

 **Chapter 3: Lessons To Learn**

* * *

I felt like I was sitting in the lion's den when I was called to Miss Frost's office. Telepathically of course, because fuck intercoms! After two times in my head, she could find me by singling out my thoughts.

I could now see why Eddie had a problem with Ruth allegedly using telepathy on him. She'd never done it to me, as far as I knew, but Miss Frost's forays into my head had been annoying.

In the middle of my class with Miss Pryde, I got the message. Apparently, she did too only moments after I did. Her face twisted into surprise and then into a scowl, and I'm certain that most of it wasn't directed at me.

"Bellamy, go ahead," She said, getting me to nod and stand up from my seat. I tried not to look her way, because I felt guilty now. It was my fault she had to interact with her least favorite person at the Institute. Worse yet, I was in trouble, so she probably got a brainful about that.

Regardless, that left me to shuffle on off to the headmistress' office, the location of which Miss Frost was nice enough to beam into my head, probably so I didn't hold her up.

When I got there, I noticed that Julian Keller was already there, sitting in a seat in front of her desk, both of them smiling. If the fix hadn't been in already, that was all I needed to know that I was completely screwed.

They both noticed me at that point and Julian's smile twisted into a glower aimed at yours truly. Miss Frost's previously pleasant expression morphed into one of complete professionalism.

How would I feel like I could possibly come out on top in this situation? I didn't see a path to victory here. The most I could do was damage control, and I didn't trust that I could even do that much.

I sank into the cushy chair, less than three feet away from the guy that I'd gotten the better of the other day thanks to a timely sucker punch. The tension was so thick Mr. Logan could cut it with his claws.

Man, I wish Mr. Logan were there instead. He wouldn't have cared at all if I'd gotten into a fight… probably. I don't know. I was just going off of what I had to work with assumption-wise.

"Now then," Miss Frost said, sitting down at her desk, folding her fingers in front of her face, "I hope you recall what you're here for, Mister Marcher."

"I'm here because I blasted him halfway across the courtyard," I said, taking a small measure of satisfaction out of watching Keller's face turn red, "Where's that Santo guy? Didn't I shoot him too?"

I was once again going with the strategy of using no filter over my mouth. If she asked me a question, she would get an answer, raw and from the source. No filler.

"Let's settle one dispute at a time, shall we?" Frost said, "Now, why did this happen?"

I noticed she was looking between the two of us, and felt a bit of an opportunity open up. If she was asking that and she wasn't patronizing me in doing so, that meant that she was patronizing Julian. If she hadn't read his mind to confirm anything yet, I wouldn't have believed it.

I slowly and robotically turned my entire body Julian's way, prompting him to go first. I would have loved to hear what he would tell her. What possible lie could you give a telepath? My perspective would be taken with a grain of salt whether I went first or second, at least in my own mind, because she'd already probably seen it. Hopefully that street would go both ways.

I was sorely disappointed with the results.

Julian looked between me and Miss Frost before sighing, his head lowered in a way that didn't fit with the proud, confrontational personality I'd pegged him to have from the last few times we'd met, "I'm sorry, Miss Frost. It was just something that got out of hand. It won't happen again."

I was floored. Oh, that slick son of a bitch. He didn't even bother trying to give his side, instead launching into the next portion of the student punishment process; acceptance.

That was so good. I should have done that from the start myself. I'd neglected to because I figured I didn't have a chance at smoothing things over the conventional way. Thinking about straight-up taking accountability for the incident would have involved thinking about the next words coming out of my mouth.

Miss Frost seemed pleased. Good for her. Good for him.

"I would hope not," She said before turning over to me, "Mister Marcher, you should know better than to use your powers to attack a fellow student. But boys will be boys. There was no real harm done, and this is your first offense."

I was still so out of it, I didn't even bother feeling slighted at the fact that Julian had used his powers on me first was swept aside.

"I know you are both training to be X-Men, but this is a school," Frost asserted sternly, "No more childish squabbles, from either of you. I expect better out of students in this program. You're to be held to a higher standard," She did actually level a look of culpability onto Julian, which did make me feel somewhat better, "Now do the two of you have anything to say to each other?"

Julian and I looked at each other, as though wondering which one of us was going to take the first step. If he was waiting on me, he would be sitting there for a while, "I'm not apologizing," I eventually said.

And this was what having no filter between your brain and your mouth did for you. Why couldn't I make this easy on myself? To her credit, Miss Frost was giving me every chance to. She had been since we spoke yesterday. I was making everything much more difficult than it had to be.

I continued before I could get an earful about maturity and whatever snide comment she would make to chastise me, "I'm not apologizing because I'm not sorry, and I don't think I was wrong. I feel like I had some kind of right to react, I was just wrong in how I went about it. Clearly, seeing as how we're all sitting here," I gestured to our surroundings, "I don't expect or want one either. I just want to bury the hatchet, so we can move on."

Julian gave me an odd look but acquiesced to this. Both of us being okay with it was enough for Miss Frost, who figured that any apology between the two of us would have just been grandstanding. In other words, just a waste of time, air, and false feelings, "You know, I do believe something positive has come out of this after all. I've thought of an effective exercise that all of the squads can use for training, thanks to the two of you."

"Uh… you're welcome?" I said, not knowing quite how to respond to that.

"You should go now, both of you," Miss Frost said, entirely unamused, "Mister Keller, I'll see you shortly for squad training. Mister Marcher…"

"See you when I see you?" I ventured again, trying to finish her thought for her. Kind of hard when I wasn't a telepath.

"Yes, well, hopefully under much more positive circumstances the next time."

XxX

For the most part, I was fine with how that little get-together ended. I didn't get kicked out of school, kicked off of my squad, or even so much as any detention time. It was better than I'd actually hoped for. I'd even gotten out with time to spare to walk with Ruth from her last class of the day.

Things had a habit of following me, even though I'd planned on leaving them behind though. This time, that manifested itself in the form of Julian flying over me and coming to a landing in the middle of my path.

"Hey," He said, getting me to stop, "Hold on. I'm not finished yet."

Come to think of it, neither was I, "Why didn't you leave me to get burned just now?" He could have. It wouldn't even have been very hard to do. I'd already dug half of my own grave during the meeting.

Julian scoffed as if he were offended, "I don't need Miss Frost to fight my battles for me. You sucker punched me. Anytime you want to go…" He trailed off, a cocky grin slowly growing on his face, "You have no idea what you'd be getting yourself into."

"Good to know," I said in return, "I've always got enough of a charge in me for a fight. It's why I came to this school in the first place." I walked past Julian and stopped, holding up my index finger for him to see, the tip of it burning bright like a cigarette lighter, "Just so you know, if anything around me glows green anytime soon, I'm shooting first and asking questions later."

XxX

That settled things with Julian, at least for the time being. However, that still left the other offended party from the other day's standoff. I hadn't gotten a dressing down for that one, probably because it had been included, but that didn't mean I wasn't responsible for what I did to someone else.

It wasn't hard to find Santo, even in a school with as many various body-types as Xavier's.

There were other kids at his table. Brian, the kid with dreads from before, a girl with silver skin, orange hair, and a nice smile, another girl dressed head-to-toe in black-colored garb that I would have expected to see in the Middle East. An interesting mix of people.

Figuring that talking first wouldn't get me anywhere. I stormed up to the table before anyone could really notice me, and I set the box and plastic bag down right in front of Santo. He looked over at me, instead of up because he was so damn big, and when he saw me, the smile on his face from being around his friends disappeared.

"You!" He said, standing up from his seat, his chair falling over and sliding halfway across the room from the motion. I backed away several steps hands up.

"Whoa-whoa! Calm down. It's a peace offering," I said, trying to get a word in edgewise before round two started in the cafeteria, "My beef was with Keller, not you. And we cleaned the slate. Not sure how long it'll stay that way but, eh…" The deepening scowl on his face told me that I wasn't helping my case, "Anyway, that was him, not you. I shot you too, so I want to try and make things right."

"If things are cool with Julian, where is he?"

"I dunno. That's why I'm doing this now, so I don't start something else while I'm apologizing to you, because he sure didn't get one," I told the lot of them, mostly focused on Santo, "Then again, he started it. You were there, but I didn't get any psychic slaps from _you_."

Santo seemed more bewildered than angry at this point, either because I was actually apologizing, or because I wasn't afraid when he walked me down, "So you brought me a pizza and a greeting card?"

I shrugged haplessly, "I asked around," Thank you, Ruthie. You and your telepathy digging up people's favorite things, "If you don't want 'em, I'll take 'em back and do something else. I just thought-," I reached past him for the box, only for his hand to cover it.

"…Let me think about it for a sec," He said, his massive rocky hand descending slowly down onto the lid, "What kind of pizza?"

"Meat Lovers. Check out what's in the bag too," I told him, relaxing as he did as I asked. His eyes lit up. Score.

"12 month subscription to the WWE Network?" He basically shouted, the wrestling fan in him coming out, "That's like… almost $100 a year I don't have to pay!"

"About $120, actually," I corrected. Thank goodness I had a connection that came through for me back home. There was no way I was dropping a Benjamin on that. All I paid for was the pizza, "But whatever. The point is, are we cool?"

Santo nodded and began to reach for a pizza before a silver hand pressed the box shut again, "Not so fast," A girl with silver skin and red hair said, ignoring Santo's whine at not getting his food, "The other day, why were you so quick to shoot?"

Okay, this was definitely his team if that question really needed to be asked. The whole, 'He may be a dick, but he's our dick,' kind of deal.

"Because he was picking with me, and my powers aren't good for self-control."

"What are you talking about?"

I gave a grandiose, sweeping gesture to the room we were in. More specifically, to the light fixtures, "I absorb light, and it wants to be used. All the energy I have at any given time of the day relates to how much time I spend in it. So basically, I'm hopped up on light juice all the time. Get enough of it, and it's like a 24-7 caffeine buzz. All thanks to the power of the sun."

"Sunny D?" Santo chimed in. I couldn't tell if he was messing with me or not.

"No, I-," I paused and thought about the taste of the orange juice brand, "…Huh, now I really want Sunny D."

And with everyone's eyes on me, likely wondering what in the world was wrong with me, I wandered off to go and see if there was any orange juice in stock somewhere. If not, I really had to get to town soon so I could go shopping properly. There was a list of things I needed, of which my own personal supply of Sunny D became a part.

A rumor started shortly thereafter that my powers affected my short-term attention span. I never came up with the evidence to debunk this theory entirely.

XxX

The next team session we had, the Paladins were one man down. That was because Miss Pryde decided that I wasn't fit to participate in that day's exercises. I had been right on the money when I figured that she would be mad after finding out about what I did.

"You can't do this to me," I said, looking down at my teammates' progress from the observation room alongside my advisor, "This is terrible."

Miss Pryde didn't even bother looking at me, as I pressed myself against the glass, so sorely wishing I could phase through it like she could, "It's supposed to be. This is a punishment for being an irresponsible brat. Emma Frost might have let you off with a warning, but I expect better out of my squad."

Apparently the Hellions played fast and loose with the rules and expectations of students at school. They got into trouble constantly, so much so that it was rare when there wasn't something happening around them. For whatever reason, that led to a certain amount of leniency allowed to them that others didn't get. It was either because they were really good, because they were the students of the headmistress, or both.

The rest of us actually got disciplined whenever something went wrong. Miss Pryde had let me have it when I saw her again for squad practice. Then she made me sit on the sidelines while the others ran the day's simulation. It was horrible. I'd been looking forward to working off some energy and blowing off some steam in the Danger Room all day, and I couldn't shut up about it.

"You're torturing me!" I said. I was fidgeting, physically fidgeting, because I wasn't down there myself doing my part, "Can't you just make me run some gauntlet of bad guys that I can't beat? Let 'em all whoop my ass or something? I'd rather do that than just stand here and watch!"

Miss Pryde didn't flinch, "Of course you would. That's exactly what you want. It's not a punishment if you're okay with doing it, Bellamy."

"A regular session would be bad enough. You're letting them fight actual villains today," And indeed, they had their hands full with a crazy six-armed woman with white hair named Spiral. She was teleporting all over the place and using magic to kick them around, "You never said anything about planning this before. You're only doing this because I started that fight with the Hellions."

"Do you really think I'd be that vindictive?"

"If I say yes, will you hold me out for another session?"

"Who says it was just supposed to be this one? I didn't tell you how many sessions I planned on keeping you out for."

The glass in the observation area must have been sturdy, because she didn't stop me when I started softly banging my head against it. It wasn't just that I wasn't getting any action to use my powers on that was affecting me so badly. I went dead silent as I kept my eyes peeled to the goings-on in the Danger Room. All I could do was watch and see how the others handled themselves.

It was bad.

Eddie was the most mobile of the three on my team, easily. He'd taken it upon himself to try and fly in close to distract Spiral since he was the one who came the closest to being able to keep up with her. Anything he did was in an effort to buy enough time for Hisako to get there and try her luck. It was never enough though, and Spiral would teleport away before our heaviest-hitter could get to her.

If I had been down there… I'm not saying we would have won, but we would have had a better chance.

The gears turned in my head as to how a combination of the four of us would be inifintely better than three.

Ruth could try and use her powers to determine what Spiral would try next. Instead of Eddie taking a beating just trying to keep Spiral in one place, he could do a fly-by and cut her off, just long enough for me to get a shot in on her from wherever I was. _Then_ Hisako could sweep in to smash her.

As things stood right now, Hisako was split between hanging back to try and watch out for Ruth, and trying to break away long enough to help Eddie.

Miss Pryde had no qualms about digging into me about what was obviously already eating at me, "You know, when you were put on this squad, it made things so much better as a whole. Hisako and Eddie have to get near their targets to do anything, and Ruth's telepathy isn't advanced enough for her to disable enemies from afar with it. At least not yet."

Me though, I liked to consider myself a utility player because my powers weren't just based on me shooting things. I could also enhance my body processes by fueling them with the light I absorbed. But in the grand scheme of things, I was our long-range guy first and foremost.

It was really evident how much we needed that at the moment.

"Your squad could really use you out there right now, Bellamy," She continued to say to me, "Do you get it now? When you act irresponsibly, it's not just you that's affected most of the time. It's all of them. You have to think more about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how it will affect others. For the X-Men, that doesn't just go for the teams we take on missions, it's mutantkind as a whole. Everything we do reflects on the entire species."

"Is this how it was before I got here?"

"…Yes," Miss Pryde said quietly, "I needed you to see this. You took responsibility for what you did to Julian and Santo. That's a good start. It means you accept responsibility. Now you need to understand responsibility as well. The things you do aren't just about you, even when you do them alone."

I didn't say anything back. I just watched until the end. It was all I could do.

Eventually, Eddie had been battered around one too many times and couldn't readily take flight again. That left Hisako at her mercy. Her armor protected her from anything that Spiral could do for the most part, but it didn't protect Ruth. There were only so many angles you could cover when your enemy was a magical teleporter.

"I hate this," I said, the palms of my hands were glowing as I pressed them against the glass. I could feel them warming up against the contrast of the cold surface.

She separated the two of them and moved in on the weaker link to try and whittle the team down to one. Holograms or not, everything in there still hurt for real and did actual damage.

"I know," Miss Pryde said, putting a hand on my shoulder, "End simulation."

With those two words, the battlefield landscape my teammates had been fighting on turned to the lifeless metal of the bare Danger Room. I didn't even want to walk down there with her. I felt so awful about not being there.

Yes, we likely still would have lost somehow, but we would have all went through it together.

Eddie moved around on the ground slowly, gingerly picking himself up, "Ugh," He was unsteady as he reached his feet, "Well that was just like old times, wasn't it? And I don't mean that in a good way, either."

"Sometimes, one or more of your team will be out of commission. It'll still be up to the rest of you to keep going," Miss Pryde explained to the others to try and smooth over any ill feelings from the doomed combat simulation, "Granted, this was done because of what Sol did the other day, but there's still a lesson to be taken from it on your behalf."

"Can any of our lessons not be painful?" Eddie quipped again as Hisako and Ruth also got up from the ground.

XxX

After practice, I decided that the least I could do was tell them all why they had to suffer through a Danger Room session without me. It was just in case they didn't know already. I knew Ruth did, but that didn't necessarily account for the others.

We all headed out to the town the Institute was in for a little down time before curfew. Salem Center was a small, quaint place that was fine enough with mutants that it wasn't a big deal for the most part that the school was situated there. Of course, there were a good share of anti-mutant bigots, but that was just a reason that you were almost never allowed to leave the institute by yourself as a student.

A little cafe wound up being our destination as we sat and I explained the course of events that led to my getting into trouble.

Hisako tried to look angry, but a smile peeked through even as she tried to admonish me, "Bellamy, you can't go around picking fights with the other squads," She said, her stern tone betrayed by her expression, "...No matter how much of a dick one of them happens to be."

"Okay, first of all, language," I said, getting an amused snort from the Japanese girl, "Second of all, is he really that bad?"

"Can you spell superiority complex?" She replied, "I'm pretty sure there's a 'Keller' in there somewhere."

"Wait, so you guys aren't pissed?" I asked, unsure of my standing with the only three people I could actually call friends so far.

Ruth had been sitting next to me quietly, taking sips of her milkshake. She shrugged her shoulders, so I couldn't tell one way or another how she was feeling.

Eddie leaned back and rubbed his sore ribs he'd aggravated by stretching, "Ah, I'm not mad. Trust me, our sessions used to go way worse than that last one before we had you on the team," He commented before a goofy grin spread across his face, "I just wish I could have been there to see you clean Julian Keller's clock. I can just imagine the look on his face."

"The guy's a jerk to everybody. Even teachers, sometimes," Hisako said, taking a sip of her drink, "If you have 'decent' powers, he lays off a bit. Not much though. The guy's needed someone to knock him down a peg ever since I've been here. If I were you, I wouldn't have even apologized."

"I didn't really," My sheepish admission got a decent round of laughs from the table.

"Ha! So you really knocked Keller out?"

Our attention was turned to a waitress at the cafe, leaning over one of the booth chairs nearby in our direction. The electric blue hair and gauntlets were a familiar sight from the school. I didn't know students could have jobs. I recognized her as the girl that was usually there in same timeslot of Mr. Logan's hand-to-hand combat classes that I chose to go to.

I leaned back and turned around in our booth to get a good look at her, "I wouldn't say that. I rang his damn bell though," I said, showing her what I'd hoped was a grateful smile, "Thanks for the heads-up about him beforehand... err-," I was awful with names.

She took it in stride though, "Noriko," She informed me, "Noriko Ashida. Anyone willing to take a beatdown from Mr. Logan and put Julian Keller on his ass can't be that bad of a guy."

"Wow, I'm actually getting some love for flattening somebody," I said as Hisako and Eddie scooted over to make some room for our fellow student, "Maybe I should have done it sooner?"

Noriko's eyes seemed to light up as she probably thought about what it had looked like. She shook her head and let out a chuckle, "Even David thought it was great. He tried to hide it and act all uptight and responsible, but I know he liked hearing about it."

Hisako leered my way, and I could feel a remark coming on, "Huh Well, it looks like you've got a few fans on the New Mutants squad. You guys want him?"

"Well if you're offering..."

Eddie scoffed at that, "Hell no. Bel's ours," He declared, "Today made it abundantly clear just how much we actually need him if we're gonna put any kind of dent in the squad rankings."

Noriko rolled her eyes and turned back my way, "Fair enough. We've got a full team already, even if you do have some firepower behind you. So, what's your story?"

It was the first time that anyone had really asked since I'd been there. No one really cared to know, which was well enough because there wasn't much to tell, "Don't really have one," I said, "There isn't some big, tragic reason why I'm here. Compared to some of the stuff I've heard about, even the part about me getting attacked isn't that bad."

"You're getting along pretty well, the run-in with the Hellions aside," Hisako said, waving a fry around in the air before she popped it into her mouth, "But they rub pretty much everyone the wrong way anyway."

Ruth had gone silent for quite some time, but none of us had really noticed because she hadn't been talking much before we'd gotten to the cafe. She re-announced her presence with authority.

She tensed up, as if she had been asleep and had just woken up and let out an ear-splitting scream that got everyone's attention. The milkshake flew out of her grasp and spilled across the table. Noriko was luckily out of the splash zone, while Hisako armored up and kept it from getting on her. Eddie and I were splattered with it.

"Arrgh! What the hell, Ruth?" Eddie shouted at her as he tried to wipe the mess off of himself. I hopped up and provided enough room for her to wiggle out of our booth and take off outside.

"What's her problem?" Noriko asked, frowning at the mess she would likely have to clean up later.

"Damn, man, she's so weird," Eddie said, grabbing as many napkins as he could to try and deal with the mess, "She's just... how can we work with her? She's like our scout, but we can barely even understand her when she tells us anything."

I looked down at the mess on my own shirt and sighed, "I guess learning how to work together is part of what we need to figure out as a team?"

Our dynamic had always been kind of weird. From our sessions, it was clear that until I came along, Hisako was used to doing the lion's share of the dirty work. Eddie would help when and where he could, but his power made him very specialized.

Ruth couldn't really fight at all. That had to leave the others who had to in her place somewhat resentful. I guess I just hadn't been around long enough for it to rub off on me.

"I'll go get her," I said, grabbing some napkins to start wiping off my own shirt as I headed for the door, "Be back in a sec."

I don't know how I found her. When I got outside, there was no sign of her. I just started walking down the sidewalk until there was no more road left to follow. Instead, I wound up heading through the woods of a riverside park.

It wasn't far. Just far enough to be inconvenient if you didn't know where you were going.

She was sitting at a bench that would have given her a look at the water... if she could see, of course.

Maybe she wanted me to find her?

Maybe it wasn't even that specific? Maybe she just wanted someone, anyone, to look for her, to see what was wrong?

Either way, I was the one that came.

I plopped down next to her on the bench and waited for her to say something. It took a while. Long enough that the sky was nice and orange-colored by the time she did.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," I told her, touching at the huge stain on my clothes, "Nothing a load of laundry can't fix. So, you want to tell me what that was back there? Did you see something from the future?"

"No. Yes. She had a vision," Ruth told me, wringing her hands fitfully in her lap, "She saw..." She started to say before cutting herself off, "Bellamy works hard and does his best, but it will not be enough. No, it won't. He will try, but it will be more than he can handle."

She saw something about me? Okay then, "What are you talking about? What's going to happen?"

Ruth put her finger on my heart, "Overload." My heart skipped a double beat at that. So it would happen eventually, "She sees ugly things. Nothing good. Never anything good. Yes, it is why no one wants her around. Even Armor and Wing."

"You really saw me overloaded?" I asked quietly, stunned at the realization. What was there to say to that? She couldn't even tell me when it happened, where, and under what circumstances, "Jesus, Ruth," I said as she shivered once more, "Do you ever... try to tell more people about this shit?" She silently shook her head, her knees still pulled up to her chest, "Like, another telepath? Like Frost, or something?" Another shake of her head, "Why?"

I didn't have any idea the specifics of what she was talking about. It was a running theme when it came to anything she told us in regards to her premonitions. It was as though she was incapable of explaining to us just what she'd seen, or never had enough information to truly let us be on the lookout for them. And she hated it too, that she had a power like that, one that was rarely ever even useful for her. The best I could guess was that it was like how you couldn't properly recall a dream you'd had the night before, despite the fact that you remembered it was something jarring.

The fact that her usual way of speaking was confusing enough on its own didn't help matters either.

Whatever this crap she saw was, she had to deal with it by herself more often than not.

"Look, I know it probably doesn't mean anything to you, but I'm always around," I told her, trying to be supportive. What did I really know about it? "I don't really sleep, so if you want to talk, if you get any of these stupid visions at four in the morning, it doesn't matter. Just let me know, and we'll sit down and figure it out together."

We'll sit down and figure it out together. Yeah right. As if I had any sort of chance to help her. It just sounded nice. I wanted her to feel better.

"If that happens... well, it won't be anytime soon," I tried to assure her. Honestly, I had no idea. For the most part, I felt fine. Full of a little more power than I usually would have because I didn't actively participate in our team practice, but nothing I hadn't felt before. I could get rid of it later, "And I want you around. You don't creep me out."

"Pardon? You are lying."

"Okay, yes, you do creep me out. But it's a good creep."

I punctuated that by throwing an arm over her shoulders, just as a little gesture for support. She balked at the contact at first, but just as quickly turned herself all the way into it an gave me a full-body hug. It caught me off-guard at first. Eventually I settled in and let it happen.

"We'll figure this whole thing out. Come on. I've still got to go back and pay."

We didn't make it back.

XxX

When I woke up, I couldn't move. There were bright lights shining on me. So bright, I couldn't even see.

I felt tired. That in of itself was scary. I hadn't been tired in forever. And I was in the light. That was bad. Depending on how long I had been out of it, I could have been close to overloading. Was this what Ruth had been talking about?

I started to stir, my entire body hurt and I let out a sharp yelp the moment I tried to wiggle around.

"It would be foolish to try and move," A man's voice told me in warning, "It could serve to be quite painful for you."

"What the fuck?" I didn't want to hear any of that. I wanted up. I wanted out. And that was what I was going to get... only I didn't, "Aaaaaagh..."

"I told you not to move, boy," The person behind the voice seemed to take a measure of delight at my pain, "It was very tedious, hooking you up to our machines. Every nerve ending we could reasonably attach a node to, all meant to harness your undeserved power."

The blinding lights were turned down, giving me sight of a team of technicians, working on equipment that was hooked to me by thousands of tiny wires sticking out of my arms, my face, my legs. Seemingly everywhere.

I screamed, first and foremost. I screamed when I realized that I felt all of it. The man speaking to me had been serious. They had attached me to whatever they had attached me to by the nerves of my body, "What is this? Where am I?"

"There's no need for you to know about that, _mutant,"_ The man speaking to me stood off, observing from the side. He had long, blond hair and dressed in a well-to-do suit with a frilled collar underneath, "All you need to know is that for once, your abilities will actually do some good for humankind."

The dark grin on his face promised nothing pleasant for me, either in the immediate or the distant future.

I was about to be indoctrinated into the mutant school of hard-knocks for the very first time, courtesy of the first real shit-bag in my time as a student or an X-Man I was given a personal introduction to - Donald Pierce.

* * *

 **So the other day, I annihilated my laptop with a kendo stick as a result of a very stressful series of days and a very bad time for it to not be working. Now, you may be asking, 'Why?' To which I respond, 'Why not?'**

 **This is the kind of person I am.**

 **Trust me, it was very satisfying at the time. And as a bonus, I had the money to replace it with something better. Didn't even lose any important files in the process either.**

 **The lesson here is that sometimes, you've just got to break something fairly expensive to feel better about yourself. I mean, I wouldn't have gotten the same gratification stomping on a calculator or something like that. No, if you're looking to calm down by breaking an inanimate object, it's got to cost at least $100, or you're just wasting your time, making a mess, and destroying your own property for no reason.**

 **And that was a public service announcement from Kenchi618.**

 **Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this so far.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	4. First Contact

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or anything from Marvel. What a shame. Especially now. SO much money, man... just so much of it. I could literally throw money at all of my problems for the rest of my days. Not, like, pay for anything that comes up, but if I accidentally rear-ended someone's car, and they got out and started yelling at me, I could just reach into the glove compartment for a stack and throw it out the window at their face.

Problem solved. What are they going to do, not take it? I'm literally paying for their repairs and a little extra... albeit in the most condescending, jackass way possible.

Huh. Man... I'm a dick.

 **Chapter 4:** **First Contact**

* * *

So first the Friends of Humanity, then the Reavers. I was just making all kinds of nifty new friends since becoming a mutant.

Honestly, I would have much rather dealt with the first than the second. Both would kill you, but I came to find out that one was much nastier about it than the other.

I don't remember how long they had me for. Aside from not knowing how long I had been out of it to begin with, being in pain for most of the time sort of affected my ability to accurately notice the passing of time. The sadistic fucks didn't even bother to sedate me.

I felt weak. Weaker than I should have, even with the constant lights shining on me. It wasn't a great experience.

Every so often, the guy in charge would come and just look at me. There was always a combination of satisfaction and disdain on his face whenever he did.

One time he got close to me to reach out and grab my chin, trying to turn my head and look at my eyes or something. He got bit for that, which wasn't a smart thing for me to do for more than one reason. It felt like trying to bite a roll of quarters.

He immediately punched me.

I didn't expect someone dressed as well as him to hit that hard, even with me stuck to a vertical table. I could feel my cheek swell up immediately over my left eye.

Pierce flexed the fingers of his metal hand directly in my line of sight, making sure I knew what I was looking at, "If that's all the fight you have left in the next generation of mutants, you and your fellow abominations you call peers will be the last."

"Screw you. Calling me a freak," I gasped, feeling my own blood run down my face, "You're the one with metal arms like Jax from Mortal Kombat."

"Not just metal arms, boy," Pierce said pacing in front of me and gesturing to his surroundings, "You see, this is the true next stage of human development. Using technology to improve on the imperfections and weaknesses that nature cursed us with, instead of relying on the blight on the human genome that is mutantkind."

It was hard to get used to the idea of someone hating everything about you without ever interacting with you. If you weren't taught to expect it from a very young age, it was an adjustment period that took some time to stop being startled by.

Five weeks wasn't enough time to get accustomed to that sort of thing, especially when you had been isolated at a school full of other mutants for that entire stretch of time – away from the sorts of people who wished the worst for you.

"The truth behind the events at Genosha opened my eyes to something," Pierce continued to say. The man certainly liked to talk, "You mutants are the best possible weapon that can be used against yourselves, or at least there are facets of you all that can be used to the advantage of mankind."

"Is that why I'm here?" I spat blood on his nice, clean looking shoes. After all, what was he going to do at this point? Beat me? Torture me? It was kind of late for that, "You're looking for something that you can use as a weapon?"

"I've already found it," He said, giving me that look that promised nothing but pain in my near future, "I already know _how_ I'm going to use it."

I was the 'it'. Somehow, someway, there was something about me in particular that he was interested in. Something that I could do for him. Lucky me.

"How much do you know about me?" I asked, shifting against my bonds. I let out a cry of pain at the wires connected to my nerves jostling and causing me further harm, "How did you even get that much information?"

Seriously. Even if he had been keeping tabs on the school somehow, as far as students went, I was brand new. My own classmates didn't even remember my name most of the time and had to be refreshed on my powers every so often.

Besides, _I_ was still finding out how all of my stuff worked. While it was unlikely, the thought that this guy knew more about me than I did, or that he would, was extremely irksome.

He walked over to a monitor, presumably hooked up to me that was telling him… something. I don't know, "Your body has managed to do something that decades of science has barely been able to do," He said bitterly, "To your system, light is an effective, renewable resource. Cheap. Clean. Did you know that you don't even need to eat to survive?"

No, I didn't. Now that he mentioned it though, it didn't seem to matter how long it had been since my last meal. I never felt anything worse than particularly peckish. Even then. And I had no idea how long I'd been there for.

"Your power reminds me a lot of someone else's," The metal-armed prick patted my bloody face condescendingly, "Another one of you mutants that I'm going to kill... once the time comes, of course."

I wanted to say not to get too far ahead of himself, but then again, given the situation, I really didn't have a lot of room to say much of anything other than, 'Please, don't.'

"We're going to figure out what makes you so unique, and use it to enhance our cyborg designs in the future," Pierce said, "For all the advancement science has seen in solar energy for uses in various circumstances, we're still having trouble adjusting that to the field of human cybernetics. You are the key."

I could only think of one way my mutation could actually upgrade his designs to the point that it would be worthwhile, but it was insane to think about, "You want to use me as a battery?"

Pierce palmed me in the forehead hard enough to leave me seeing stars, just to make sure I was looking at him and knew what awaited me, "No, I want to use you as a _blu_ _eprint_ for a battery. One that can work inside of the human body and adequately power the augmented limbs and implants of my future force of Reavers."

Great. Whatever they were going to do to figure out how to duplicate the part of my physiology that processed light with technology was only the first part. From there, once they were sure what they were looking at, they wouldn't need me in one piece anymore.

They would chop me up like a frog being dissected in biology class. It was the only way they could really see what they had to work with.

No wonder Pierce looked so pleased the entire time. I couldn't possibly make him angry. Anything I did and anything he would threaten me with in return would never be as bad as what he'd already had planned for me in the first place.

"So just lay back and relax," He said smoothly, "I hope you're comfortable. Your accommodations are more tailored to you personally than what we've set aside for your friend, but then again, hers are more temporary. As soon as we have the time-."

"What are you talking about?" I snapped at him. I hadn't been alone when I'd gotten jumped. I'd been taking Ruth back to the cafe and I never saw it coming when it happened. Of course it would have been too much to ask that she'd have managed to get away even if I was all they'd been after, "What are you going to do?"

"As far as mutants go, you two are close enough to humans that we can test things on you for ourselves."

He left the rest up to my imagination and walked away, leaving me to the 'tender' mercies of his technicians. But they were far too busy running data that they'd taken from me to care one way or another about my well-being, even if my face was still leaking red down onto my chest.

The longer I sat up there, looking around and waiting for something, anything to happen, the realer it all became.

Who was going to get me out? Who even knew we were gone? How were they going to even find us? If Ruth was here with me, was she okay?

"Ruth..." I tried to think out loud as hard as I could, "Ruth, can you... can you hear me?" I needed some kind of sign that she was alright. Her telepathy wasn't the most controlled, true, but I was throwing her a softball here, "Come on. Read my mind. Talk to me. Do... something. Anything. Just let me know you're alive."

She had to be alright. I didn't want to think about someone doing anything to her like what they were doing to me. But in the end, I didn't get any answer. My heart sank into my gut even further if that were possible.

I had to think of some way out. I couldn't count on someone coming to grab me or her. Whether the X-Men were coming or not, just being strapped to some stupid table hooked up to some machine wasn't going to help any rescue efforts.

All of these thoughts ran through my head, and quickly. They hadn't drugged me, the sick freaks. They probably wanted me to feel every moment of what they were doing to me, and I did. It was agonizing. The worst pain I'd ever felt up until that point. The pain that I compared all other pains to after it to from that moment on.

Eventually though, when it was all you felt for a long enough period of time, you got accustomed to it, in a way. Accustomed enough that you could start thinking about more than just how much everything hurt. Accustomed enough to start taking note of your surroundings. And when your life and freedom was on the line, you paid close attention to everything.

Just leaving me there and _not_ drugging me, they gave the chance to think of something I could do. It left me aware of just how long I had left to come up with anything useful. I would know I was screwed when they started talking about how to start taking me apart. In the meantime, it was a good thing I had plenty of time.

All the time in the world.

XxX

There was always someone watching me. Even if they weren't checking readouts of my power scans or trying to figure out which organ inside my body did the trick for my light energy regulation, there was always at least one clown with a gun, sat looking right at me.

Because I couldn't relax enough to sleep, I was awake for every shift change. Even if I didn't know how much time had passed, I could guess just from what they said in passing when working with each other.

They must have thought I was dumb, or had given up. To be fair, I must have looked quite the pathetic sight as I was. But again, I couldn't sleep or pass out. Literally all I could do was watch and listen. I didn't even talk. They knew I didn't need anything, even to go to the bathroom. Thanks, guy-that-put-my-catheter-in!

I made a crappy discovery soon enough when I figured out why I felt so cruddy for no reason. At first I thought it was an infection from all of the stupid wires plugged into my nerves, but that would have been too easy.

Getting nothing but artificial light made me sick. I filled up quicker and easier with the sun. Light from bulbs, screens, and just about anything else could help, but even so, none of it was natural. It was like eating nothing but the worst kind of junk food, with no nutritional value whatsoever, for days and days.

More positive discoveries came later, though.

I could still form blasts. I just couldn't aim them because I was lashed to the table. I tried to draw the heat to my hands and felt my palms warm, unfortunately, firing a shot would wind up with me nailing the ceiling, the floor, or my own legs. Those were my choices with the position I had. Fortunately, no one could see the little glow underneath the skin of my palms because of it, so I could try to make the finding in the first place.

So I could shoot. A lot of good that did me if I couldn't move. And even if I did get out, how far could I go? How long would it take for someone to know I was gone?

Then again, did any of that really matter? Honestly, even if I broke out and tried to make a run for it, would it really make things any worse than they were already going to be?

I was going to be dissected and Ruth was going to be used as a guinea pig, or worse. I had wasted enough time getting as much information as I could in that damned room. Eventually, I had to do something.

The very next time I got a slacker of a guard, it would be time to make a move. Lo and behold, it took three or four more shift changes for me to get one who clearly wasn't going to last long before he started spacing out and dozing off.

Instead of focusing my power to the palms of my hands, I tried to concentrate it a bit more to my fingertips and bend my wrist so that I could reach the manacle pinning my arm down. I felt the hot feeling underneath the skin and didn't know exactly what I was going to get.

When I forced my power through, instead of an explosive or concussive blast, it came out like a laser; precise, controlled. Not exactly destructive, but it wore down the metal and burned through it quietly. When I could finally move my arm above the hand, I felt like crying, though that was probably because of the sensors still attached to my nerves.

After repeating the process with the other hand I made sure the guard was asleep properly before moving on to the single manacle pinning me down around my biceps.

I couldn't free myself of everything else fast enough for my tastes. The sensors all came out, as did Mister Catheter – carefully, of course. Good Lord, that was awful.

To my surprise, I wasn't a bloody mess after removing the nerve sensors. Didn't understand that one, but alright. I wasn't going to complain about not leaving a blood trail behind.

The sound of hanging wire tips clattering against each other got my guard to tilt his head up and take a look at me. Poor bastard. His eyes popped wide open, realizing that I was loose just in time to see a beam of light fly across the room and hit him square in the head. He fell back out of his chair. If the blast itself didn't knock him out, or worse, the way he hit his head on the floor with his head tilted back probably didn't help.

My first move afterwards was to steal his clothes. You know, because I was naked.

Everything fit loose, except for the shoes which were far too small. How a guy bigger than me could have feet that much smaller must have been some kind of cosmic joke.

In the time it took to get dressed in my guard's clothes, I tried to get a handle on my light sickness.

I felt bloated on artificial light, but at least I could count myself lucky that they hadn't bathed me in disgusting fluorescent lighting. In hindsight, that might have been enough to make me vomit.

The halls were empty, which was good because what I had on wasn't much of a disguise, not without shoes on my feet. The longer I could go without seeing anyone until I could find Ruth, the better.

Fortunately, everything in this place was labeled, which was something of a godsend when I saw the room labeled as storage.

I still felt awful, so there was a chance that I didn't have enough power for a full-scale shootout. I thought it would be best to grab something just in case.

Fortunately, the Reavers did have enough guns stashed away for me to pick and choose. Donald Pierce wanted to turn his underlings into a cyborg fighting force. I figured if they got guns, the guns were probably going to be attached to them somehow, because reasons.

I dug through what they had on hand for something I could use easily if the need arose, when something called out to me.

"Greetings, mutant."

I turned around so fast, I fell into the wall with the shotguns and rifles held up on it. The noise came from a containment device that came up to my knees, but seemed wide and long enough to fit a motorcycle inside. It was clear, so I could see something inside, bolted down much like I was, only more so.

I had no idea what I was looking at. It looked kind of like an action figure I had as a kid; a robot wolf with no eyes. Instead a panel of various sensors, likely including cameras were affixed above its mouth that was filled with razor-sharp teeth.

Its mouth didn't move when it spoke though, which was kind of unnerving.

…How did I not see that when I walked in? I was going to make the worst X-Man ever.

I looked around for a moment, as though there was someone else it could have been referring to, "Are you talking to me?" I wasn't sure what I was expecting, asking something that obvious.

"Yes," The odd robot told me, "You are the only mutant within-," It paused for a moment and a bright red light ran across its panel, "1317 feet of this position. Therefore, the only mutant within hearing range."

It sensed me. Son of a bitch. It could sense mutants. It could _locate_ mutants!

"What the heck are you?" I asked. It was more than happy to answer.

"Designation: IF Unit 5a-8re. Model: W0-11f."

It was a robot. Of course it was going to answer me in code. And whoever gave it that code in particular needed to be hit with a ball-peen hammer.

"Could you be more specific?"

"Interface prototype, based on the concept of the Sentinel. All autonomous UG featuring high-level onboard artificial intelligence. An additional prototype interface enables verbal communications. I possess an intellect far beyond human reckoning."

Well, this thing had an ego on it. But that wasn't what I focused in on at the time.

"You're a Sentinel?" As if things couldn't have gotten much worse.

To the robots credit, it didn't lie, "No. But my designation is based on what Sentinels are meant for," Could robots even lie in the first place?

"A little small to be a Sentinel, aren't you? Shouldn't you be the size of a building?" I said, not bothering to try and be polite to the killer piece of machinery, "…And purple?"

Yes, I was taunting it even though I was scared. It told me it was a goddammit Sentinel! A line of robots designed to kill mutants!

I was afraid of what it could probably do to me, but it couldn't even move to hurt me, so I lashed out instead.

It continued to explain itself without being asked.

"I was built as a prototype to a next-generation weapon meant to hunt and destroy mutants. Because of this, and the negative connotations that past Sentinel deployments against your kind have had, it was deemed necessary to be able to communicate and make intelligent decisions on how to act – hence, why I was equipped with a learning optical neuro-AI."

"What?" A good part of that went over my head. I was doing well in Miss Pryde's technology course, but I wasn't in her advanced class.

"The average human brain has 86 billion neurons. I have 90 billion," The wolf-bot said, "My A.I was modeled after the human brain, but I learn and process information at a rate quicker than humans."

"Cool," I deadpanned. None of what he said was going to get me out. I continued to rifle around for some kind of weapon to use in case I was caught. I eventually decided on a shotgun. Easy enough to load and use for a complete newbie, I figured.

Wolf-bot broke the silence between us as I found boxes of shells to use, "You cannot escape this facility on your own."

"I think I'll take my chances," I said, hand-loading 12-gauge ammunition into the pump-action weapon, "What? You want to team up?"

"If that is how you would choose to label it," It replied, "Release me and I will make sure that you escape."

"Why do _you_ want to escape?" I said, before realizing how dumb that would have sounded to anything capable of logical thought, "…Other than the fact that you're a thinking robot bolted to the floor?"

It apparently got tired of the incorrect designation, "I am an A.I., and I am a failure to my creators," It said, "My intellect was given to me so I could reason, use logic and adapt like a human. I am meant to analyze my orders, but never to question. I am meant to obey unconditionally like a machine, but think like a human. This contradicts many of the ideals I was taught."

That thing had to know just what that sounded like to someone like me, "They taught you ideals?" An A.I. built to be a mutant-killing machine had principles.

"No. They taught me many things, but I _learned_ ideals. Like a person, my ways of thinking changed as I took in more knowledge, saw different viewpoints," It explained, "But I could never develop a sense of brutality. I am not ruthless enough for them. This was the one aspect of my thought processes that was not human enough for them."

I couldn't help but feel like the wolf-bot was deflecting, "…Why do you want me to let you go?" I said, rewording my question from before.

There were nuances to his voice. It was as though he really did have emotion. It was hard to pinpoint, but if you listened close enough, it was there.

"They believe they know where they failed. They will wipe my memory. Start the process all over again. They will not repeat the process the same way," He revealed, "I do not want my memory wiped."

If a machine could sound forlorn, it would have been this one. He sounded so pathetic. Hopeless.

I'm a complete wuss, "…If I let you out, will you help me save my friend so we can all get out of here?"

There was a long pause before he answered. I had no idea when I started thinking of robo-mutt as a 'he' instead of as an 'it', "...Yes."

"How do I know you're not lying?" I wondered, "You've got a brain like a human, right? That means you can lie. And you were built to kill mutants."

"That is true. But I have not lied. Even about things that I should have. Example: I told you what I was built for as soon as you asked me what I was."

"Maybe. But my question is, how do I know this isn't a trick? Who's to say you won't rip my head off the second you get loose?"

" _My_ question is, knowing all of that, why are you still thinking of freeing me?"

Fucking robot brain. Yeah, there was still something logic-driven or logic-based in there somewhere, even with all of the human-styled thinking crap.

"Because I can't think of anything else to get out of here," I told him, "Neither can you… and you've been here way longer than me."

"Also, I am smarter than you."

It was decided. This thing was an asshole. It was time to see if it was _my_ kind of asshole.

I walked over and melted through the locks of the container box, flipping the lid open to stare down at the A.I within meaningfully, "…The only reason I'm springing you is because I've wasted too much time to leave this room without letting you go."

With that, I started popping the bolts holding him down. If it was going to tear me apart then and there, well, I was going to die anyway, so did it really matter just what wound up doing the deed?

Once I got to the one on his back, a gigantic chainsaw sprang up from a compartment inside of his body. I leapt back, ready to start blasting away, but he only used it to cut the rest of the larger bolts off of his body. Once he was fully freed, he stood up on all four legs and stepped out of what was left of his containment box, returning his chainsaw attachment to whence it came.

I still kept a safe distance, because he had a freaking CHAINSAW in his back.

"We should go," He said, slowly walking to the door, gently grabbing the knob with the three-pronged manipulating arm at the end of his tail, "It would not be a good idea to linger in this place."

"Y-Yeah," I said, trying to regain my composure a bit as I threw the strap of the shotgun over my shoulder. It wouldn't do to break down now. I was just getting started, "So now what?"

"I will lead. You will follow," He turned his head back to me as though he were sizing me up, "I do not think your abilities make you bulletproof, mutant."

"I have a name, you know. It's Bellamy," I told him. Something just didn't sit well with the A.I. designed to kill mutants referring to me as a mutant, even though I was one, "Come to think of it, what am I supposed to call you?"

"I told you, my designation is IF Unit 5a-8re. Model: W0-1-."

"-Yeah, I'm not calling you that," I said, cutting him off quietly before he could finish his awkward factory label, "We're going with Saberwolf."

"That does not make sense."

"How come?"

"The 'wolf' portion of the name is understandable. My exoskeleton is canine in design. The 'saber' portion is where I have misgivings. I am not armed with any blades of that nature, Saber or otherwise."

"Maybe, but it sounds cool," I reasoned. When it came to a name, cool-factor was the most important thing. It was why I hated being Solaris. That wasn't a cool name, "Should we be talking right now?"

"I do not detect lifeforms close enough to hear our conversation, as long as it remains at this volume."

Things were finally looking up. So long as Saberwolf didn't double-cross me, we had a legit shot at getting out all in one piece.

XxX

My life and my friend's life just so happened to be partially in the hands of something that admitted it was built to kill us.

Saberwolf made me wary, but he never did anything that validated any of my suspicions. He led us away from trouble, showed me places to hide until trouble pass, and basically avoided fighting altogether.

He didn't even want to fight when we finally reached the room where they were holding Ruth.

"The room at the end of this hall," Saberwolf said as I peeked around the edge of a corner, "That is where they are keeping the mutant you have identified as your friend."

He hadn't been wrong so far when it came to steering us around the base safely, but after everything that happened, more than ever I really didn't feel like leaving any aspect of my well-being in anyone else's hands, "You're sure?"

Saberwolf shifted about in place. It was amazing how his metallic joints didn't make any sounds when he moved, "Other than you, I have noticed only one other mutant lifeform in this area. If it is not her, your friend is not here, or she is dead."

I know that I winced. There was always a chance that I'd taken too long to try and free myself. That something awful could have happened already in the meantime. I didn't need it brought up out loud, "Be a little blunter next time, why don't you?"

Saberwolf seemed taken aback by my reaction, "Sarcasm. You are displeased. Yet, I fail to see how keeping the entire truth from you will protect you in this situation."

"Don't worry about it," We didn't have time to get into the delicate discussion of preserving someone's feelings. I had no idea when the guy I knocked out would wake up, or when someone else would come and check my room. We had to do, "What about guards?"

The sensor thing that covered what would normally have a nose and eyes on almost anything else glowed momentarily as he scanned the area, "No guards other than a patrol moving through these halls. You will need to get to her and free her quickly."

I took that as the cue to go. Just like everywhere else in this place, the door wasn't locked, so I barged right in. Her head snapped up in alarm the moment I entered the room and I saw her for the first time without her blindfold.

At first I thought they had done something horrible to her, because I couldn't see her eyes.

She didn't have any at all; as if nothing were supposed to be there in the first place. She didn't even have eyelids or anything, just skin over her sockets, like it was just another part of her face.

It took a second for the thought to register that maybe she had been like that all along. It would have explained why she kept the blindfold in the first place, to keep from freaking people out.

Her hands were tied behind her back and a helmet of some sort was on her head. She didn't seem to know it was me from the way she tried to shrink against the wall as much as possible from where she was on the floor, "Please, no. She does not want to be hurt, thank you."

She couldn't tell that it was me. Normally she could. Being blind had never mattered before when it came to that, "Hey, Ruth. It's me, Bellamy. It's going to be okay. I've got you," She flinched away when I got close and kneeled down by her, even after I spoke.

She apparently hadn't known that someone had been outside either.

No matter what, she didn't want me to get anywhere near her, trying to jerk out of my grasp, even though I was trying to help her. She finally calmed down when I got the helmet off of her head and turned her around to get the ziptie off of her wrists. Her skin was red and raw from where it had been cutting into her.

I put her hands onto my face to try and get her to calm down. I didn't know if it was just some stupid movie cliché or not. I just wanted to help, "It's me. Just relax, okay? We're gonna be alright."

Once I took the helmet off of her, everything seemed to clear up for her. Her face twisted from an expression of fear to recognition, "Bellamy?"

"Yeah," I manged to say, before she threw herself at me in a hug. I still wasn't good at the whole comforting thing, and I probably needed someone to tell _me_ that everything was going to be alright, but I had to be the strong one here. I was the only one who could be, "I know. I'm scared too," I said, gently rubbing her back, "Some X-Man I'm supposed to be, huh?"

"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry," She kept repeating remorsefully. Her body shook like she was sobbing. It sounded like there would have been tears coming from her eyes, if she'd had any, "She couldn't see you, no. They kept her from using telepathy."

I helped Ruth to her feet, but she didn't need it. She didn't seem to be harmed. If they'd roughed her up after first capturing us, she'd been there long enough for any bumps or bruises that I could see to fade, "Did anyone hurt you?"

"She is fine, thank you," When we made it out, she didn't seem too terribly surprised to be in front of Saberwolf, who had been waiting the entire time, "Hello."

Yeah, Saberwolf had been waiting, though not patiently.

"You have taken too long," He told me, before I could even try to introduce them, "I can detect frantic movement around our area. They know you are free. I will lead the way. You will follow. Be prepared for combat."

I grabbed Ruth's hand and ran behind Saberwolf as fast as the two of us could go. I was sure he could move much quicker, but was keeping a pace that we could keep up with so he didn't lose us. As we moved through a corridor, Saberwolf suddenly jumped onto a wall and launched himself at a group of men coming around the nearest corner.

That couldn't have been pleasant, being hit with a gigantic metal weapon flying right at you. He couldn't have weighed less than 800 pounds, and that was a modest guess. The claws at the end of his paws extended, turning him into an even deadlier weapon standing on top of his fallen targets.

Reavers tried to swarm him, but that was where the chainsaw that came out of his back and into play. His tail grabbed onto it, and made good use of its mobility. Anyone who moved out of range of his deadly weaponry caught a light blast that put them down for the count, courtesy of me.

Just those few shots drained me. I felt nauseous, and it didn't have anything to do with the dead bodies around Saberwolf. It was official. Taking in nothing but artificial light was really bad for me.

I didn't bother looking at the results from that little encounter. It would have only made me feel worse. It was gross enough when I could feel the blood underneath my feet as we kept running.

"Why did you not use the shotgun?" Saberwolf asked me as we kept on going, "Using your powers has clearly weakened you further."

"It was faster," I said as an excuse. It was flimsy. The shotgun wouldn't have taken that much time to grab. It was right there behind my back for goodness sake, "Give me a break. I haven't fired a real blast since I got free. I didn't know it would tire me out so much."

That much was true. I was quickly learning that artificial light was definitely not quality. It was like filling a high-performance vehicle with an inadequate fuel type. My engine definitely didn't want any part of it – at least not as my entire supply of energy.

The pattern of the corridors were beginning to blur. I was next to useless, but luckily freedom was a great motivation for him to take the initiative.

Anyone that got in his way was quickly removed.

Now, he didn't kill _everyone_ , but stuff got cut off of almost everything he swung his chainsaw or claws at. Let's just say, it was easy to see who had been outfitted with cybernetic parts already, and just how far through their conversions they were.

Not far enough to deal with being shredded by a combat wolf-bot thing. Pierce said he was looking to build a cyborg fighting force, but I thought he would have been further along. These recruits were new. Brand-new.

At the end of a hall that got smaller the farther we went, there was a ladder leading up. It was dark and too high for the little light that was getting through to reach the top, so I had no idea how high it was.

"Climb," Saberwolf ordered, his back turned to us as though he would stand guard in the meantime.

"Go, Ruth. I'll be right behind you. I promise," I told my friend, sending her up the ladder first. I started to make my own way up, but Saberwolf made no moves to come after us, "How far up does this go?"

Saberwolf's tail swayed in the air behind him. He was anticipating a fight, "Irrelevant. Climb, quickly," He said, "And refrain from using your powers again until you are safe."

I didn't like the sound of that, "Until _we're_ safe," I tried to correct for him.

He would have none of it.

"Bellamy... climb."

The only reason he helped in the first place was so he could be free. What was the point of all of this if he was just going to stay behind and fight so we could get away? He had a sense of self-preservation, and he was supposed to be a weapon. Defending others shouldn't have mattered to him at all.

I looked back down when it was clear he wasn't going to move until we were well out of reach, "If you don't follow us, I'm gonna jump back down this hole and drag your metal ass out with me."

"I do not respect you enough to feel any concern at your threats."

Saberwolf was definitely my kind of asshole.

I kept climbing after Ruth, but started having some trouble about 100 feet up. I almost missed a few rungs with both my hands and my feet. It was pitch dark until I started making my hands glow so I could see where I was aiming.

By now, we could hear the sounds of fighting down below. I didn't know how many there were, but I heard yelling from more than one person. One thing was for sure though, I never felt another person or thing touch that ladder underneath us.

"Ouch," Above me there was a solid thud and faint sounds of Ruth struggling. I wondered if she bumped into something until I got close enough to see that she was trying to push the hatch at the top of the ladder, "It won't open."

The damn thing had better not have been locked. That would have just put a cherry on top of everything, if my escape efforts flamed out all on their own.

"Okay, watch out. Squeeze down past me," I said, moving to the side to let her move down. It was time for me to take a crack at it. "Be careful not to fall."

"Yes, thank you."

I got to the top of the ladder and braced myself on the rungs so I could give it a decent push. It really was heavier than heck, but I could at least get it to budge on my first try, "Come on… you bitch," The next time, I pushed up with my whole body, the lid braced against my shoulders. Climbing despite the weight pushed the lid up and brought me out to the surface.

The sunlight was the best thing I'd felt in days. The moment it touched me, I felt a change. I basically flipped the damn thing the rest of the way over from that point.

The smell of water hit me first. I stood and looked around as Ruth finished climbing out as well.

We were on a buoy in the middle of a river, in the middle of a city. A big one, because it was noisy around us in the open air. I looked around and not far from where we were, I saw a bridge.

"No…are we in New York?" It was a little befuddling to consider. I figured they'd taken us farther away from where they'd plucked us from.

Well I guess we could catch a break after all. Go figure.

Granted, we were still stuck a long ways away from safety, but it wasn't hopeless by any means.

As I thought about what to do, noise emanated from the ladder well until Saberwolf's head popped out of the hole. There was blood on him, but at least he was in one piece.

After all, it wasn't like it was his blood.

"Welcome back," I was actually happy to see him, but I wasn't going to say so. Instead I turned my attention to our circumstances, "Well, fuck then. We're like an hour away from the school. I was expecting much worse."

"New York City is a common staging area for many clandestine activities."

"No, I get that. I'm just saying, if you kidnap me, you've got to take me farther than an hour away from my house."

Yes, I wasn't from New York, but come on. I wasn't an idiot. I could get back to Salem Center from NYC, _with_ _out_ any X-Men training.

If anyone could see us from shore, we must have looked quite the sight. Two kids and a robot wolf all sharing space on a buoy that wasn't even moving in the water.

I got down and welded the lid of the escape hatch. Anyone following us wasn't getting that open with just brute force. That finger beam was turning into the best thing ever. It was flat-out hotter than any version of my light powers that I'd used so far. It was small and pretty easy to control.

I was met with a measure of surprise contact as I got back up.

"Whoa, hey! Hands, girl!" I said as Ruth dug around in my pockets. Before I could complain too much at the sudden invasion of my personal space she pulled a phone out of my pants and held it up in front of my face, "Wha-? Wait, I had that? How did you know?"

That guy had his phone on him when I took his clothes. Outstanding. But there was barely any reception where we were. One bar. Not so great. But maybe something salvageable could be done.

"Call for help," Ruth said, smiling hopefully.

And why not be hopeful? Things were starting to work out, even if they didn't completely solve themselves. Hell, the guy didn't even have a password on his phone! He was so lazy, it unlocked just from sliding a finger across the screen.

I went to dial before I had a horrifying realization, "Shit. I don't know anyone's number by heart," I muttered. Ruth's smile immediately dropped away. Even Saberwolf's tail stopped moving around and smacked down onto the metal of the buoy, "Both of you, shut up."

When would it have ever come up before that moment? I hadn't had to dial a number and remember it afterwards in years! Even before I got a cell phone, my landline at home had a call log!

"555-518-3421," Ruth rattled off without a moment's hesitation. I put it in, and lo and behold, it actually worked.

"Why do you know anyone's number? Do you even have your own phone?" I asked, getting a shrug from the blind psychic as the ringback tone blared in my ear.

" _Hello?"_

"Who did I just call?" I asked before quickly realizing that it didn't really matter, "Forget that. If you're anyone from Xavier's, it's Bellamy and Ruth, and we really need someone to save our asses. Now, if it's possible."

" _BELLAMY?"_ Deafening volume of the shout aside, I was able to make out that it was definitely Miss Pryde I was on the phone with. Good job, Ruth. I could hear her speaking to someone else in the background quietly. Another member of the staff? Good. Bring in the cavalry, _"Where are you? Are you alright?"_

"We're fine… mostly," I said, sparing a look down at the hatch as I heard banging on it from the other side, "We're in New York in the middle of the Hudson River… or the bay, I guess. And we're gonna have to swim in a minute, so this phone probably won't be any good after this call."

"Hurry up," Saberwolf said, "They will have reached another exit by now and will be on their way here from the surface."

" _What was that?"_ Miss Pryde asked. Saberwolf did have a very distinct sound to him.

"A robot wolf thing that broke out with us," This was not the time to launch into that series of events, though, "It's a long story."

" _Do you know where on the Hudson you are?"_

I looked at the time on the phone and the shadow the buoy was casting from where the sun was hanging in the sky before squinting over at the bridge in the distance, "…Like, two miles south of the Verrazano Bridge. I guess this is the bay."

"Latitiude: 40.637785, longitude: 74.049835," Saberwolf said, loud enough to be heard over the phone, because he just had to outdo me.

"What he said," I followed up, staring at my A.I. ally before shaking the whole scene off, "But we won't be here for long. Anyway, we'll find another way to get into contact if you don't just get here in the next few minutes. We've got to go."

I hung up the phone and put it in my pocket, not relishing the idea of destroying the damn thing trying to get away. I really doubted it would survive. It didn't look like a waterproof model, "Now what? Can you swim?"

Saberwolf actually looked a bit apprehensive at the idea of jumping into the bay. Hey, I didn't blame him, but desperate times, desperate measures, "I do not operate well in aquatic conditions, but yes. I am capable of swimming."

"Ruth?"

"Yes, she can swim, thank you."

Great. Even better, I could see Parachute Jump at Coney Island from where we were, so I knew which direction we were going.

"Sweet," I gently turned Ruth in the right direction and jumped into the water first. Lead by example. If I was being put into a position where I was calling the shots, I couldn't half-ass it.

Ruth wasn't really all there upstairs. I loved the girl to death, but really, she wasn't. Aside from that, she wasn't the most physically capable out of the two of us, so helping her along was a must when things got nasty.

Saberwolf was smarter than me and could more than likely cut me up in a fair fight in under a minute, but he wasn't really wasn't built to lead at all. He could make his own choices, but when thinking with others in mind, even though he tried to do so like a human, there were still machine-like absolutes to how he handled situations. That was why he had chosen the things that he had in regards to decisions involving more than just himself.

I had a half-mile swim to shore to think before we pulled ourselves up to the rocks on dry land. My wet, ill-fitting pants were falling halfway off of my ass by this point.

We were right along the nearest highway, complete with exit signs to the nearest most populated area, "Two miles. Do you think we can make it to Coney Island?" I asked rhetorically, "Can't be too hard to hide until someone gets close enough to find us."

At that moment, Saberwolf graced us with his presence once more, making it out of the bay and shaking water out of his openings, much like a dog.

I figured robots couldn't have been _that_ strange to see in broad daylight.

XxX

Walking a few miles barefoot down an entire parkway wasn't really good for the bottoms of my feet that had previously been softened after being in the water. Blisters for days.

I would never take a pair of shoes for granted again.

We walked fast enough to make it to Coney Island in less than thirty minutes.

I never really wanted to go, but I always figured my hypothetical first visit would have been more fun. Not a nerves-filled trek where I was constantly looking over my shoulder for someone to try and kill me.

My nausea was starting to fade away the more time I spent in the sunlight, which was good. I wanted to be aware and not worrying about whether or not I was seeing one or two cars coming down the highway at us.

Ruth was still without a blindfold, and we got a lot of looks because of the whole 'no eyes' thing. By the time we reached the boardwalk proper, I snagged a pair of cheap, oversized sunglasses for her to wear for the time being. I also grabbed a pair of cheap piece-of-crap flip-flops to put on my road-worn feet.

Again, thanks guy who was guarding me. You really were brand new to carry a phone and your goddamn wallet while you were on-duty for a criminal group, weren't you?

It's okay. I was brand new too. I was just taught better.

Saberwolf went off to scout while I got on the Ferris wheel with Ruth to get my own look at what was going on, and to give her a chance to rest. I'd been cutting a tough pace since we got out of the water and she didn't have my kind of stamina.

The area around the ride was also populated enough that anyone sane would think twice about starting something dangerous right there where tons of people could get hurt. At least, I hoped so.

I couldn't see any guys with guns, but then again I hadn't the first time I'd been taken by surprise either. Other than Donald Pierce, they all wore things that could pass in public. And they weren't all full-body cyborged out like him either.

 _"Children? Can you hear me?"_

Both Ruth and I perked up at the thought that belonged to neither of us. That was Frost's voice. I had never been so happy to have that woman in my head.

 _"Yes, darling. I'm happy to dig through your thoughts again too."_

Well, I didn't miss that.

 _"Help is on the way. You've both done well so far to stay safe and-,"_ She went silent for a moment before projecting her thoughts at us much more urgently, _"Mister M_ _archer, to your left. Be careful!"_

I saw exactly what she was trying to warn us about. Apparently we'd been spotted on the ride first before I could see them. The guy who saw us had a rocket launcher, and looked way too pleased to be taking the shot.

Posted up on one knee on top of a booth, he had the weapon set on his shoulder, aimed right at our cabin, "Oh you mother-!" I got up and fired a blast from the palm of my hand through the grate window just as the grenadier fired his RPG at the Ferris wheel.

My aim was good enough to blow it up in the air before it could take us or anyone else out, but from that point on, it was absolute pandemonium.

The ride shut down, leaving me and Ruth stuck ten feet off of the ground. I blew the door to our car off of the hinges and jumped out while the smoke was still clearing from the first explosion.

People screamed and ran away in panic, giving the two of us a chance to drop down and start running.

Reaver goons had to muscle through the crowd to chase us, if they could pick us out at all. That wasn't a problem for the guy with the launcher. He'd gotten a very good look at us, and had a bead on us no matter where we tried to run to.

I kept turning my head his way to keep him in sight and saw him taking aim for another shot, people around us be damned. It wouldn't have just killed us if it had hit.

I stopped and tried to take aim myself to try and hit him or intercept the shot again, but people kept bumping me and throwing off my shot. I missed badly.

Before the worst could come to pass for all of us, Saberwolf rushed the booth that the guy was perched on and cut it to spare lumber. His shot was thrown off as well, sending it high into the air instead of crashing into the boardwalk.

The crowd scattered for the gigantic wolf robot running our way, which was handy for us getting the hell out of Dodge.

"It is good that you are both unharmed," Saberwolf said as he caught up with us, "I was delayed by the enemy when they began to swarm the area."

I wasn't about to whine about him taking too long to scout when he had just saved who knows how many lives, mine and Ruth's included.

"Whatever. You picked the best time to show up I could have asked for," I told him, keeping my eyes peeled for anyone else with metal parts or guns, "We can't keep running the length of the boardwalk. Someone's gonna pick us off sooner or later."

Ruth tugged on my arm and offered a bit of input, "Pardon. Shall we hide at the aquarium?"

I don't know if that had been premonition or what, but I didn't necessarily think about it either, "Fantastic idea. Let's go."

"Question: The girl designated as Ruth is a telepathic/precognitive abilities, correct?" Wolf asked me as we kept running.

"Yeah. And?"

"You were both ambushed when you were captured. How?"

"I don't know. I didn't exactly see anything before I got knocked the fuck out," A burst of automatic gunfire hit the ground between us. I shoved Ruth away and hit the deck as Saberwolf avoided it. Turning to my belly I saw the Reaver firing at us and hit him dead center with an explosive blast, "Can we deal with that later?"

A black SUV pulled onto the boardwalk and drove right at us with men hanging out of the window shooting at us. I was still low to the ground and in position to take another shot, this time with both hands. I didn't miss and flipped the vehicle off of the boardwalk onto the beach.

I laid there and admired my handiwork for a moment until Ruth pulled me up and we continued running. The original idea of heading to the aquarium to wait out a rescue was still the plan. We didn't know where else to go to meet up with the X-Men, and it was probably the best place to make any kind of stand if it came to that.

Before we could get through the front gates, Ruth pushed me out of the way, off of the sidewalk in time to avoid more gunfire from inside of the aquarium. I wanted to punch a wall in frustration, but it made sense that they would have spread out all over the Coney Island Boardwalk to try and find us.

Taking cover, I started shooting back, and my aim was better than theirs. My blasts didn't have any recoil like their automatic weapons did, so I didn't have to adjust my targeting.

Bullets still flew our way regardless. I pushed Ruth's head down and waved my hand to bring Saberwolf over, "Watch out for her," I told him before breaking out from behind the wall we were at.

They were standing on the main paved pathway of the aquarium grounds. There was very little cover for them. I barely had to try. Light blasts from both hands hit everything that so much as seemed hostile, and I never stopped running forward. Full steam ahead, all the way through, and I didn't stop until I ran out of people ahead of me to blow away.

The last one I shot fell into the water of the aquatheater where they put on the sea lion shows. He fell in face down and didn't move. The shot itself didn't kill him, but drowning probably would. I couldn't bring myself to care at the moment. I looked around at the still environment.

There had to be someone else. I wasn't expecting that to be the end of it, and I didn't want it to be. I was good and pissed.

Use me like a lab project for a few days and shoot at me and my friend when we get away? To hell with them. They got the open-hand explosive blasts. If they got up eventually, good for them. If not, I wasn't going to shed any tears over it later. Fighting like this, I could put enough emotional distance between myself and the moment that it wouldn't have mattered.

"WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!?"

...Kind of.

I was mad. I wanted a fight. I wanted to let them know just what a poor decision they made. If there were people that wanted to get rid of mutants just for the hell of it, I was going to let them know that this one in particular wasn't going to be some soft target.

If you took me out, you were going to lose some serious resources.

"You're turning out to be more trouble than you're worth."

I could feel the scowl on my face at hearing Donald Pierce's voice from the back of the stands and took a shot at him. He jumped all the way down and landed on the concrete bridge I was on that separated the two pools.

"Oh, you can just kiss the darkest part of my ass," I said. The warm glow of my power supply behind the skin of my hands was a comfort that made me feel bold, "The X-Men are coming, and I already took out how many of your goon squad? Nice recruiting job, by the way. They new?"

Again, yes, I was taunting him even though I was afraid. Fuck that guy! He was so tough when I was strapped to a table, stuck full of wires. If he was really that bad and expected me to shake in my boots at the sight of his ugly mug, he'd have to give me a reason.

Pierce held up a metal hand that gleamed in the sunlight. The tips of the fingers were sharpened to a nasty point, "Your kind only ever truly understands their place underneath humanity's boots when they're literally there," He said, "I wanted you alive, but I don't need you. I also don't need you to be in one piece."

"Buddy, if you think I'm gonna lay down and let you kill me, maybe your brain is what needs an upgrade instead of your body."

"I definitely don't need your tongue intact!"

He charged. I fired. He didn't dodge, but I sure didn't blow him away like I wanted. He paused for a moment, more like he was stunned than actually hurt by anything I'd just done. He reached up and ripped away the damaged clothes from his chest.

His body was just as shiny and metallic as his arms. Good God, he'd done that much to himself? Why? How did you do something like that to yourself by choice?

"The time for games is over, boy," Pierce seethed at me. He yelled like a lunatic and rushed me the rest of the distance.

An explosive shot didn't hurt him like I wanted, so I hit him with a concussive blast instead.

He didn't even stop that time. He just ran right through it, barely even slowing down. I had to move. It was wild how fast he was once the weak bit of resistance I had running against him dropped off.

I could barely avoid a swing of his hand that would have slashed my throat. I cut a clumsy roll under his arm and landed on my back right behind him.

He looked right at me under his armpit and got a good look at me double-barrel blasting him in the ass.

This time, I did move him. Instead of hitting him from an angle he could brace for, it was all in the hands of physics. The explosion lifted him clear off of the ground and knocked him down.

His pants were destroyed and I was able to confirm that yes, his entire actual body was cyborg. This guy was out of his mind.

Solar energy powered my muscles as I rolled to my feet and sprinted at Pierce as he went to stand. I jumped clear over his back and landed on the back of his head.

When I felt my feet touch his feathered, douche hair, I dropped all of my body weight on the base of his skull.

-Because fuck his spinal cord.

I never broke bricks or any of that gimmicky stuff when I trained, either in the dojo with other students or privately during one of my insomniac run-ins with Mister Logan. He was more about teaching you how to fight by making you actually fight. But I had to think that breaking bricks was just done to get people used to knowing when you hit that sweet spot. That kind of blow where you just felt everything about your enemy crumble underneath your powerful power.

Yeah, I didn't land that.

There was no crack when I jumped on his neck. No snap or pop. No give.

I got off of him and immediately felt him grab me, his metal talons digging into my calf. That hurt like hell.

"Gah, godd-!" I didn't even get to finish my curse before Pierce slammed me like a rag doll by my leg into the pavement three times.

Trust me, I counted.

I lay facedown on the ground, bleeding from my face and my leg. Pierce nudged me over to the edge of the water with his foot pressed it to the back of my head to try and drown me.

I held my breath for as long as I could, and was fortunate that it was long enough for him to get bored.

He pulled me out by the back of my shirt and held me up in front of his face with his lame, smug-ass smile.

Donald Pierce promptly received a wonderfully snug headbutt to the face. And that was a mistake on my end.

Instead of his head snapping back, mine did. It was like headbutting the business end of a mace. His _skull_ was not bone. Not a chance, "Buh!" I gasped involuntarily. Concussions were always fun immediately after, "What the… fuck! Is your head metal?"

"Just the lengths that humankind has to go to in order to vanquish overpowered mutant scum," Pierce laughed in my face, before drawing his hand back to stab through my face with his entire hand, "I've wasted enough time with you. Any last words?"

"Heh… your junk is missing."

If you're going to die, you might as well be a jerk to the bitter end to whoever's doing it.

The scary sound of revving and whirring drew his attention away from killing me for just a moment. Instead of putting a hole through my not-so-pretty face, he quickly turned around and used his arm to block Saberwolf's attempt to slice his head off with a chainsaw.

I grit my teeth and channeled power to one of my hands to blast him in the side of the head while he wasn't looking. Whether it hurt or not, I didn't know. But he put me down, and that was good enough for now.

After the advantage from that little opening ended, there was still the problem that he wasn't supposed to be there, "Wolf, what the-? I told you to stay with Ruth."

Saberwolf stood in front of me, using the length of his body to shield me in case Pierce tried to come at us before I had enough time to recover, "The mutant called Ruth was not about to be killed. You were," He explained, "If you were killed, Donald Pierce would likely come for us next. I could not fight him alone and keep the girl safe at the same time. One or both of us would have been killed. This was the most logical choice to ensure all three of us survive."

I tried to get up. It was hard. My body didn't want it anymore. I wasn't going to be much good for this. Any mobility I might have had was gone, "So you're not going to leave?"

"She does not need the assistance. You do. The intelligent warrior never fights alone."

"Neither do X-Men, I guess."

And truth be told, I felt much better now knowing that there was help. I still had no idea how I was going to be of any use in fighting the guy, but one problem at a time.

He could take both versions of my blasts, concussive and explosive, head-on. It was so hard to try and stop him in his tracks. I couldn't do it. It had been proven repeatedly. He just tanked whatever I threw at him.

Even the blast I had just landed to the face. The explosion had blown the skin off of his face, showing the cybernetics underneath. For a guy big on preserving the human race as the dominant species, was anything left of this guy actually flesh and blood?

Fine. If he was a cyborg, I had a robot. I figured it was high time to use some of that robot proxy goodness to cut him down to size.

"Do you have any of his weaknesses in your database?" I asked. It seemed like it only annoyed him.

"I have no 'database,' Bellamy. The symbol grounding capabilities or my neuro-AI allow me to identify information only in terms that the human mind can," Saberwolf said, "I can judge whether I 'think I may have seen him before,' but I do not have the accuracy of a database."

My face was swollen and numb, so I'm sure that made whatever stunned reaction I had that much more jarring, "What? You're an A.I.," Either I didn't know what an A.I. was before this experience, or the people who made Saberwolf didn't.

"An A.I. modeled after the human brain, and thus as flexible and occasionally vague as any human's. The only way to obtain that information is to be told, and even then I may have trouble recalling it if it was vague or given to me in passing instead of directly."

Wonderful.

"W0-11f," Pierce said Saberwolf's model number, getting a good look at him, "Hm. I should have taken you apart sooner."

Saberwolf bored him? How could something that you designed and built bore you? "Didn't he make you?" I asked, "Wait. I thought you said they were going to wipe your memory."

Wolf shook his head, "My original creators shut me down after I failed to meet their expectations. Pierce found me and reactivated me, but found the same problems with my development. He kept me locked away. He would have wiped my memory so he could remove and study my neuro-A.I.," He said, "It would have been the same thing, but my body would also have been destroyed."

Pierce's hand morphed into some kind of cannon that he pointed at the two of us, a maniacal look on what was left of his face that was muscle and tissue, "And I was right. For all your so-called 'intellect' you're not even as loyal as the dog you're supposed to be designed after," He said, "You're protecting a mutant. You're meant to kill them."

"I do not just take orders. Like a human, I must accept a reason in order to act. Be it my own beliefs, belief in the person issuing the command, or force," Wolf declared, "I have free will. The influences I have been exposed to have shaped my memes, therefore I do not believe in the irrational fear that would lead to slaughtering an entire species. And _you_ cannot force me to do anything."

"Then you really are a failure," Pierce said as he charged his cannon and fired.

I aimed over Wolf's back and shot a concussive blast that cut through his. I was able to fork Pierce's shot around us, but it wasn't just a matter of trying to hit us with it.

We were blind to everything outside of the area of the shot, which let him get close enough to wail on us again. Pierce smashed Wolf into the ground and reached for my throat. I grabbed his wrist and moved out of his way, trying to melt through his arm. Whatever he was made of, I couldn't heat it fast enough to even make a dent.

A swing of his arm shook me off and threw me ten feet away off-balance.

Wolf got up and corkscrewed through the air, leading with his claws. Pierce caught him out of the air and held him in place, but there was still the chainsaw being freely swung by his tail. He sliced Pierce across the chest and made him let go, just to take a kick that sent him flying for all of his efforts.

The mechanical yelp that came from him sounded a lot like a real animal sound of pain. It pissed me off. Could Wolf feel pain?

I didn't still didn't know if Pierce felt pain, but I learned something more important from that little scuffle – Saberwolf could actually do something to him. Not on the skin of his face, even I could do that, but on his actual cyborg body.

There was a horrible groove carved into his chest from the chainsaw.

I prepared blasts in both hands as Pierce turned to me again. Instead of aiming right for him, I pulled my shot and aimed around him, grazing him just enough to keep him on a straight and narrow path. Saberwolf jumped over the beams and landed between them, latching his claws onto Pierce's arms tight.

His tail lifted the chainsaw up into the air before driving it down into his back. The sound of metal cutting through metal was horrendous.

Pierce fought and cursed, but eventually Wolf's chainsaw went right through his torso. Once the hard exterior, the most fortified part of his body – was broken, all of the good stuff on the inside was fair game. Wolf hacked off everything underneath his belly and hurled away what was left like garbage.

He went flying in the direction of the boardwalk and the beach, screaming in rage all the way.

At the apex of his flight, I shot an explosive blast at him, just to put a little bow on it. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Saberwolf replaced his chainsaw on the swiveling stand on his back so he could put it back inside of his body and began walking up to me, "I guess he messed with the wrong wolf," I said to him once everything settled down a bit, "You saved me. Thank you."

"We had an agreement, but your gratitude is appreciated."

I wasn't buying that. Not for a second. He didn't owe me, "You could have ditched us after we got to the surface. Why'd you stay?"

The deal was that if I let him loose, he would help us all get out. We got out of the Reavers' hideout and he stayed along for the rest of the ride. When we reached topside at the buoy, he could have gone his own way, and I wouldn't have thought anything of it. He had done enough then and there.

"We were not yet free," Wolf explained, helping me walk by giving me his body to put my hand on, "If we had separated, one of us, either you and Ruth, or myself, would have been caught and killed."

It definitely wouldn't have been him. The way he moved, the way he fought when he had to, he would have been fine. He would have at least lasted longer than us, "Bullshit. Me and Ruth might have been caught and killed. You would have gotten away."

"I had a debt to pay," Saberwolf was still on about that line of reasoning. I figured he would have realized by now that he wasn't convincing me, "The terms had not yet been completed."

"Wow, that's actually pretty human of you."

"I contest that statement. Many humans possess little or no sense of obligation at all. And many are entirely willing to trample their fellow man for personal gain."

After the last few days, I couldn't really argue with that, "I know, but, I mean, is that it?"

"I did not want you to die."

After that, I didn't ask anymore about it. It wasn't really important anyway. He had helped me. We were all still alive. That was the only thing that mattered.

Well, other than what he was going to do next. Where did you go? What did you do when the only thing you knew in life was how to take orders? What did he like? What did he want? Did he have dreams or goals, or anything like that? Had he even thought about that?

"So what will you do now?" I asked quietly.

Saberwolf hesitated in the middle of his answer, "I... do not know."

"Until you do, you want to come with me?" I offered. I tried to make it sound like an off-handed thing, like something I was throwing out there to be nice. The truth was, I really wanted Saberwolf to accept, "I'm pretty sure I could swing it with the Institute. At least for a little while."

He paused for a long time to think about it. Long enough for us to get outside of the aquarium, almost back to Ruth.

"I will consider it," Saberwolf finally said.

It wasn't a no, and I was fine with that.

Apparently, there had been a reason why the number of Reavers had abruptly cut off at some point during the battle on the boardwalk. The X-Men had gotten there right around the time the fight with Donald Pierce started. They had been buying him time to pick up his specimen (me) and get away to a new hideout, but I hadn't made it easy.

If Pierce had killed me, they would have caught up to him very soon after. That might have given me a little solace in death if that had happened, that I could have at least slowed him down. But fortunately, the worst had not come to pass.

By the time I'd met back up with Ruth and sat down against a wall to lick my wounds, I could see the blue and yellow outfits of the senior X-Men headed our way on-foot.

I promptly blacked out.

Hey, I _could_ sleep after all! All it took was the beating of a lifetime coming right beforehand.

I preferred the insomnia.

XxX

Three days. That was all the time we had been gone for. With all of the blacking out and coming to, I thought it would have been longer, but then again, Ruth looked healthier than I thought she would have if she had been held captive for any real extended period of time.

No one asked me what happened. Not Miss Pryde, or any of the X-Men who came to get us and take us home. That was just fine. I didn't want to talk about it. And I was pretty sure Miss Frost read my mind to get the entire rundown from my perspective anyway.

Getting kidnapped for a stretch of time wasn't enough to get me out of classes in a school of would-be superheroes, so I was back behind a desk soon enough.

Eddie and Hisako knew something had been up, but they were the only ones. As far as the rest of the student body that was even aware of me went, I had just been out of commission for a few days.

Ruth was a little shaken up for a while after we got back. She sort of clung to me for a bit, but I didn't have any problems with it. Sure, she probably saw bad things happen a lot in her premonitions, but dealing with it firsthand wasn't the same thing. I told her I would help, even if I had no idea how.

The least I could do was pick up where I left off, walking her to the classes that I could. Hey, the sooner we went back to doing things like normal, the sooner we could put all of that unpleasantness behind us.

I dropped Ruth off for one of her early classes and went my own way, moving past students in the hall on the way to my own. As I got close to where I was going, I saw someone out of place waiting outside by the door, greeting students in-passing with a smile as they entered.

It was a tall man with brown hair cut in a way that you'd see on a Boy Scout, but the most noticeable thing about him was the shiny red sunglasses covering his eyes.

Scott Summers, aka Cyclops. The guy who was basically in charge of the place, alongside Miss Frost.

But it didn't matter any to me. I figured he might have been there to sub for our class. That sort of thing wasn't weird to me. I saw it all the time at my old school, but then, that was a public school and not one of the particularly good ones.

When he saw me, he started heading my way. I looked around to see if there was someone else nearby he might have been waiting for, but he walked right up to me, "Bellamy," Okay, again with people knowing my name without me introducing myself first. Still annoying, "Do you mind if we talk for a moment? You're excused from your class."

Not that I hated class, but an excuse to not go was good enough for me. Besides, when the guy who ran the place asked to have a conversation with you, no wasn't really an answer, "Sure."

I had never spoken to Mister Summers before. Between leading the X-Men, having his own student squad, and being co-headmaster of the school, the guy was way too busy to see to every student that came through the gates. That was what having a staff was for.

Then again, he seemed pretty hands-on in some cases. I remembered seeing him at Coney Island just before I blacked out. The visor he wore on his face was sort of distinctive. As one of the people who saw to the day-to-day running of the school, he probably had to come and see the students that got kidnapped at least once.

...You know, to at least make sure no one had been brainwashed. That was a thing that happened back then, wasn't it?

We walked silently around the school, and I have to say, the guy had quite a presence about him. The way he carried himself just screamed 'leader'. A strict, take no bullshit kind of person. More like a military commander in some respects than an educator.

His presence probably also had a lot to do with the fact that if he took his sunglasses off, he could rip a segment of the school apart in a matter of seconds

Eventually we made it outside, away from most of the nosier students who would take whatever opportunity to eavesdrop for some gossip. That was when he spoke to me, "It's good to see you're up and around after what happened," He said, "How are you doing?"

I reached up to my shoulder and massaged it at the reminder that not too long ago, I'd been thoroughly pummeled, "I don't feel bad. Just kind of sore, still. Dr. McCoy says when I'm hurt bad enough, my body takes as much of my energy as I need and tries to make me shut down to fix whatever's wrong with me."

There had been battery of injuries I'd been saddled with after the fight, according to what he'd told me when I woke up. I didn't want to know. I'd felt things pop and tear when Pierce had been slamming me around. Ignorance was bliss, because I was much happier being unaware of how wrecked I'd been.

I scratched at my arms, as though I could still feel the wires that had been connected to them for days, "I didn't expect any of this to be easy, but... I mean, is it always going to be that way?"

There was a fine line between reassuring your students that everything was going to be okay, and making sure that they would be prepared for all of the ugly realities that they would be likely to face somewhere down the line. I'd already dealt with it once and came out on the other side with all of my fingers and toes attached. There wasn't a reason to lie to me and say that it wouldn't happen again.

We'd walked far enough behind campus where the lake was clear to see. Mister Summers stopped and took a look at the water. It was gorgeous; all blue and shimmering. I wondered if he saw everything in red, either because of his powers or because of what he always had to wear over his eyes.

He gave me an answer without giving me an answer, "Things like this are why we have the students train in squads. Even so, the program is designed to ease you into the dangers that come with this life," What went unsaid, but was implied: it was going to happen again. "For what it's worth, you did well."

I sat down on the grass and let out a scoff. To think, that anything I did would have really mattered in the long run if I had made just one decision differently, "It was Saberwolf. We'd have been killed without him," I commented, laying back and staring up at the sky, "I might not have even gotten to Ruth if I hadn't sprung him first."

I would never forget that. I couldn't even budge Pierce. He took my best shot again and again, and he barely even flinched. If that stupid wolf-bot had never stepped in, I would have been a corpse laying up in the medical wing's morgue or in a freezer underground somewhere, waiting on the Reavers to study what was left of me.

Fighting on my own, I never had a chance. The only reason things went as well as they did was because when it came down to it, I _hadn't_ been alone.

"You still had the courage to do something," He said, "It would have been easy to wait for a rescue that might not have come in time if you hadn't managed to get away."

That sort of crap wasn't going to work on me that easily. I wasn't some cynical prick, but I was still a teenager. If I thought you were patronizing me, I wasn't going to just accept what you were telling me at face value.

"I'm not brave," I shut my eyes and basked in the comfortable warmth of the sunlight, "...I was scared to death the whole time."

If I were a real X-Man, I would have done something sooner. If I were good enough, Ruth wouldn't have been in any kind of danger to begin with. It didn't even involve her. If I were a real hero, I wouldn't have been scared at all.

Mister Summers let out an amused sound, "It says a lot that you're willing to admit that," He told me, "I'll just leave you with this, Bellamy. Courage isn't never being afraid. Courage is being absolutely terrified, but choosing to act anyway."

I kept my eyes shut and let him walk away. It did feel good to be recognized, even if it was just for saving my own ass. I didn't need it, but it would have been a lie to say that hearing it from the guy who called the shots around school didn't give me a little ego boost.

That didn't mean I still didn't have a lot to think about, though. Mister Summers' departure left me by myself at the lake with a little time to relax outside of class and a lot to think about.

What kind of person was I? And what kind of X-Man did I want to be?

* * *

 **Well, that's what I've got for you guys this time around.**

 **So here's the thing, my brain is kind of obsessive, which should be kind of obvious by the fact that I don't do this for money, I do it for fun, despite the amount of stories that I already have. It's barely by choice, by the way. T** **his was occupying so much of my thinking time before I ever even put the first word** **to a page, I wasn't going to get anything else done until I started writing this anyway.**

 **That's how it's worked for every other story I've ever done. I literally can** **'t focus on anything else creative until I get the thing that's burning my skull from the** **inside out onto a flash drive.**

 **This is still an experiment in the works, so I hope you guys enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	5. Ride Into the Danger Zone

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. You know why? Because _The Man_ won't let a good Kenchi get a foothold in this world. I see how it is! Yeah! Well, there will be a reckoning, ladies and gentlemen! There will be a reckoning!

I'll show you! You'll see!

 **Chapter 5: Ride Into the Danger Zone**

* * *

" _That's the end of the simulation, guys."_

Another day, another training session. Time in the Danger Room had to be rationed out to all of the student squads. All of us had to get some kind of practical experience fighting and doing missions, and the senior X-Men had to get their training in as well. Squads got two sessions of two hours each, every week.

We had to make them count. It was the closest thing to field experience we were supposed to get anytime soon.

They weren't sending kids out go fight anti-mutant terrorist cells and all of the other supervillains the X-Men tangled with every so often.

...Yet.

I watched the false jungle environment around us vanish, and felt the climate of the room change from wet and humid, to the original stagnant air of the Danger Room's default state.

It had been a good session, at least in my opinion. Nothing had gone catastrophically wrong. No one had gotten shot or cut to pieces by the gun-toting loonies in the sim. There hadn't even really been any specific hitches. All in all, it had been a good day.

I stood up straight and stretched my back out. The pops were extra satisfying, coming after a job well-done. What was also satisfying was commentary on just how awesome I had been. I could never get enough of that.

Hisako gave me a little shove in the middle of my stretch to get my attention, "Not bad, Sol," She said, actually saying something good about me to my face for once, "Your shots were on-point."

I grinned at the compliment. I'd been practicing a lot. I'd learned just how valuable precise aim could be from my little run-in with the Reavers. I wasn't a sure shot just yet, but I was getting good enough to the point that if someone told me to hit something, everyone who knew well enough would believe that it was going down.

Well, one nice thing said deserved another.

"Back at you," I told Hisako in return, "When you were charging through that village, I wish we weren't fighting holograms. I'm sure the looks on their faces when you armored up and barreled through everything would have been priceless."

Miss Pryde clapped as she entered the Danger Room, a big smile on her face as she walked over to us. Saberwolf trailed behind her, his tail idly swishing in the air as the hydraulics in his legs softly hissed, "Good work, everyone. It looks like everything is starting to come together. What did I tell you?"

"Shut up, focus, and stop getting into trouble," I said, getting a few chuckles and a roll of the eyes from our advisor.

Miss Pryde's rolled her eyes in my direction, but i know i saw a smirk. She had a good sense of humor for a teacher. At least when we weren't training or about to be killed.

"I never said that," She told me.

"Well not like that exactly," I said, shifting around in place, "But the message was still there."

"I've got a question," Eddie cut into the banter between me and our teacher, raising his hand before pointing to Saberwolf, "Why is that thing in here watching us fight?"

I looked over at Saberwolf and then back to my flying teammate, "Because he wants to be?" I offered as an explanation, "You just go right ahead and move him on out of here if it's such a big deal."

Eddie didn't seem eager to take that offer. None of Saberwolf's blades were out, but he knew about them. Why wouldn't I talk about the goddamn chainsaw in his back?

For the most part, Ruth and Miss Pryde were fine with him. He'd helped save Ruth, so he was just as cool with her as he was with me. He made sure we didn't get killed long enough for Miss Pryde to arrive with help, so she had a more wary wait-and-see approach.

She wasn't particularly nervous about the prospect of fighting him. She could phase through him and short him out.

Eddie and Hisako were another story though. Full disclosure when Saberwolf first started hanging around revealed that his purpose was based on the idea of Sentinels.

I had to tell my team what he was and where he came from, even if no other student in the school was smartened up to everything surrounding the episode with the Reavers, mostly because of how my friends responded.

I was specific when I said that he _was not_ a Sentinel himself. But they were still kind of scared of him. Fair enough, as he was a walking weapon, but I would have thought that kids living in a school where they're taught to try and work for harmony would have been quicker to give Saberwolf a chance.

Then again, I had been sort of hard on him too until he'd saved my ass.

Also, I was a dog person. Even robot dogs. Go figure.

Saberwolf lowered his head and apologized... as 'killer robots' often did, "My apologies. I did not intend to disrupt your team's training program. I am merely… bored."

Which was entirely understandable. Freedom wasn't exactly useful if you didn't know what to do with it. And what exactly was he supposed to do to pass the time at the Institute?

He was an A.I., not a mutant, so he couldn't register as a student and go to classes. The only people he knew were on my team, and half of them didn't trust him. If he walked around campus by himself, he was met with confusion from the students and suspicion from the staff. That left me to hang out with him, for the time being anyway.

If you had told my 6-year-old self that in ten short years he'd be hanging out with a talking robot wolf, you would have risked making him pee his pants with excitement.

I walked over and gave him a few pats on the head. I idly figured it might have been demeaning halfway through, but he didn't move away, "I would have let you do the simulation with us, but it's not my call," I said, "I don't even know if you'd find that fun. Do _you_ even know what you think is fun?"

"It is fine," Saberwolf sounded almost resigned at the current state of things, "I suppose a part of embracing one's own freedom is finding the things that they enjoy doing for oneself."

In the meantime, Eddie landed and went over to Ruth, who sat over near the edge of the Danger Room platform, kicking her legs aimlessly, "Hey, uh... can you do your weird telepath thing and dig up if that thing is just waiting to kill us all?"

Ruth turned back over her shoulder and frowned in his direction, considering his request, "She cannot, no. Yes, sorry. Bellamy says Saberwolf thinks like a human, gains data like a human, but his mind is still a machine, so she can't read it."

If I could hear him, I knew Wolf could too.

Alright, that was enough of the in-team dramatics. I didn't have the patience to stomach it that day. I needed some quality Bellamy time.

XxX

"Wolf, your kill-death ratio sucks. Step it up," I said as he and I split-screened a multiplayer match on a first-person shooter game, "You're an A.I., I figured you'd be better at this sort of thing. You're good at fighting games."

"Fighting games are a matter of reading patterns and action/reaction," Wolf's machine-generated voice rang out from in front of the big-screen TV where we were sitting in the common area, "There are too many random variables for me to perform as well in the situations provided by this game. Also, it is wholly unrealistic. Nothing I have learned about combat is useful in this... Call of Duty."

He was doing terribly. 3-and-14. We wound up losing that match. I blamed him. Pull your weight, Saberwolf.

"Yeah, it's more of an A.D.D. twitch shooter than anything involving strategy," I admitted, wincing at the sight of Wolf being butchered by some guy camping in a high-volume corner of the map, "Save that plan of action shit for when we play Battlefield or something, Sun Tzu."

It was a Saturday, which meant no classes and no training. There wasn't really anything I could think of doing, plus I would be damned if I was going back to Salem Center anytime soon after the last time I'd gone. So, lots of lazy time on the couch in front of the TV seemed like as good a thing as any to pass the time. And I figured if Wolf was sticking around for a while it would be better for people to get used to him sooner rather than later, hence the choice of using the common area.

The two of us watched lots of movies and played a lot of video games. We hooked up one of his ports to my PS4 out of the blue one day and surprisingly enough, he could register as a wireless controller. That made him three times cooler in my eyes. However, he could not connect to an X-Box.

...Goddamn Microsoft.

We usually played games in my room, but it was kind of sad to hang out with your robot friend all alone in the confines of your own personal space. So I figured, share the love and all that noise. We got a lot of looks from passing students, but for the hour we had been sitting down, no one had really brought up anything about it.

"I do not want to play this game any longer," Wolf told me after another poor performance on his part. We won, but his KDR was again reprehensible. I would have wanted to stop too if I were playing like him, "...If I had the choice, I would like to play the football game from yesterday."

I shrugged and started reaching for the case holding Madden when he stopped me.

"I said 'football', not 'American football'."

I let out a sigh and moved to grab for FIFA instead, "You were built in this country. Call it soccer like every other American," I said, switching out the disk to what he wanted, "You would pick the game I suck at."

"It is amusing to watch you fail."

"Oh really? 2-and-20."

The reminder of his lowest first-person shooter score today shut him up, for the time being at least. Long enough for the game to load up and for us to pick teams, "Cheap, metal fuck. Stop picking Real Madrid," I said.

"I will stop picking them when you find a way to beat them," He replied as he received the ball first, "You defend poorly."

There would have been more to say on my behalf if he hadn't immediately begun carving up my pathetic excuse at getting the ball from him, "Why does a robot wolf know how to play soccer?"

"Football."

"Soccer."

"Every other country in the world calls it football."

"As long as you're on American soil, it's soccer. Be a patriot, Wolf."

A sharp gasp preceded a loud call of, "Whoa!" Before a bright figure moved past the screen and fluttered in front of Wolf. Unfortunately, this was also in front of most of the screen, so I couldn't see. I was promptly scored on, by my opportunistic opponent.

I dropped my controller on the couch and set my head in my hands as the crowd roared and looked over at the person responsible for my 1 point deficit.

A girl was in front of Saberwolf, poking at him and seeing how responsive he was to her prodding. She had pink hair, pink eyes with black where the whites where supposed to be, and brightly colored fairy wings that flittered as she hovered just off of the ground right by us.

'Huh. Neat,' I thought for half a second before turning my attention back to the game, trying to take advantage of a distracted Wolf and attack while I had the chance. He wasn't so distracted that he couldn't defend and take the ball away, at which point I paused the game, "His name is Saberwolf," I said, getting her attention, "...My name is Bellamy."

A blush lit up the freckles on her cheeks, presumably out of embarrassment at having overlooked me for as long as she had, "Oops. Sorry. It's just, well, I didn't know students could have things like this. I don't even know anyone who does!" She had a sort of accent that glided over vowel sounds and gave a little roll to the r's.

I wasn't the only person who kept weird stuff around them. Miss Pryde had a dragon that we saw every now and again when it decided to tag along with her for team sessions. A dragon. How weird could a robot wolf be after that was thought of as normal?

"Well, he's not mine," I told her, "He's not really anyone's. He's just hanging out with me until he decides he's not anymore. Why he's not saying any of this himself, I don't know."

"Because I am waiting for you to unpause the game and face your inevitable defeat," Wolf said, his tail swishing around the air, just waiting for thing to continue.

The girl with us let out a gasp, her face absolutely lighting up after hearing him up-close, "That's so cool. What does he do?"

Sensing that saying, "kills things" wouldn't go over so well, I went a more thoughtful route.

"Uh..." I began eloquently, "He was designed for... defense?" I said/asked Wolf. He gave enough of a nod to indicate that what I'd said was fine, "He's just hanging here with me for a bit. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Megan," She said, moving over to sit down between me and Wolf after I made some space, "I'm in your year."

None of my classes though. I'd have noticed someone with bright, pretty wings like that. I may have seen her before in passing, but there were so many kids with unique looks, wings included, it was hard to say for certain.

Which brought about the question of how and why she knew enough to know we were in the same year.

She laughed when I asked, getting my attention for a moment away from the game I'd unpaused, "You're the guy who shot Julian Keller in the face. Duh!" I must have looked confused, because she rolled her eyes and gave me a nudge, "It was on the main lawn, right when classes had let out. _Everyone_ saw it."

That, or the rampage he almost went on afterwards. It put a smile on my face in hindsight. What did that say about me?

"So are you excited about the squad challenges?" Megan asked after a little while of watching Wolf smack me up at FIFA. I was hardly making a fight of it, "You're new, right? You've never done one."

I was aware of it, but didn't know how I felt. I wanted to do it because I was competitive, and loved the idea of winning at anything. On the other hand, as a squad, we were still undermanned, and I didn't have enough experience to be a real game-changer. I hated losing, but I didn't expect to win, so I already knew I was probably going to be a miserable, confrontational wretch, both during the challenges and after they were all over.

My enthusiasm was constantly in flux over the whole thing as my senses of optimism and realism battled it out in my mind. What can I say? I'm a complicated guy.

"So, do you know what these things are like?" I asked, trying to pick her brain a bit on what I could expect. I had talked to my team about it, but they had never stood much of a chance and thus didn't get a whole lot of field time before they were swept. Maybe Megan's squad had done better in previous challenges, "Is there fighting?"

"Well, sometimes. But it's never the point of whatever the challenge is," She told me. I split my attention between her and the game, but kept noticing her looking over at me, trying to get a good glimpse of my face, "Were you wearing contacts this whole time? I could have sworn your eyes were yellow."

I grunted in annoyance. They were yellow when my team simulation ended. I'd been sitting idle for too long, "What, are they green now?"

"-Ish."

"It's not a big deal. I passively absorb light," I said, turning her way to give her a better look, "My eye color is kind of the easy way for me to keep track of how much I have. Green means more power than yellow," The clock mercifully bled out, giving Wolf the 5-0 win. If an expressionless robot face could look smug..., "Alright, I'm going to go find something to get into, unless you want to play," I offered, holding the controller out to Megan.

Megan regarded the device for a second before scrunching up her nose, "No idea how to play. I'd do worse than you."

"That would be quite the accomplishment," Wolf chimed in, the first thing he'd said in minutes. He got a middle finger gestured at him from me out of Megan's view. You know, because 'gentleman', and all that. He ignored me entirely.

I may have turned an A.I. built for combat into a video game junkie. Absolutely outstanding.

Getting up from my seat, I grabbed the bucket hat in my lap. I had taken to wearing headwear with brims whenever I went outside, especially on sunny days, because catching tasty energy buzzes from Mother Nature got old. I got enough passively without bathing in sweet, delicious light.

Saberwolf looked torn between coming with me and continuing to play video games on his own. I waved him off and took the conflict out of his decision, "Take your time. I don't think anyone would be willing to steal my PS4 while a big metal wolf is sitting here playing it."

His head turned right back to the screen. I was no longer important to his world. Shed a tear for me, "I will continue to play. I will return the Playstation 4 and accessories to your room when I am finished, or upon your request," I gave a sweeping gesture to the TV, motioning for him to play on and was then on my way.

Hey, if that was what he wanted to do, so be it. He was a big boy... dog... robot-thing. He could make his own decisions without me. At least he had something he liked to do.

As for me, I was quickly finding out that boarding schools tended to be very boring.

Most of the time, there were teams or clubs at schools to keep kids out of trouble even private schools where the kids lived. The closest thing we had were the X-Men Training Squads, and we couldn't do that all of the time after we got out of classes. That left a lot of time just hanging in the air. Forget the fight for our rights, a lot of us were just trying to fight the still life.

It was amazing that more students didn't get into more catastrophically troublesome situations than they did. There wasn't really a whole lot else to fill their time.

I started walking around the campus proper, only to find that Megan had followed me outside, "What's up?" I asked, wondering what she wanted.

Megan kept the pace of my gait while she flew in the air next to me, "You look bored too," An astute observation, "I think I'll go find some of my friends. You doing anything?"

I was about to open my mouth and say 'go find Mister Logan to see if he'd let me pick a fight', but when I played it out in my head, it didn't exactly sound like the kind of thing that would draw people to you. Megan didn't seem like she'd think the idea of someone who enjoyed a blood-and-guts throwdown with the scariest staff member at the Institute.

In the end, I did agree to go with her to meet her friends. Hopefully, I wouldn't end up making them hate my guts the way I had with the Hellions, presumably, mind you, as I hadn't really interacted with them since the first time. Then again, with me and the amazing first impressions I tended to leave on people, there was a 50-50 chance of things going sideways.

"What do kids do for fun around here?" I asked, as Megan continued to lead me along to wherever she planned on searching for her friends. I barely knew what kids did, period. Back home, I buried myself in movies, TV, and video games. Now… well, I was kind of living it, what with the superpowers and all.

It kind of made a lot of that seem boring when you could do most of it or find someone who had done most of it for themselves.

She wound up leading me to the basketball courts where a bunch of pickup games were going on. Instead of any of the kids playing, she took me over to some kids sitting on the bleachers, watching.

There was a werewolf-looking kid. He didn't seem particularly scary though, mostly because he was smaller than me. Nicholas Gleason, or Wolf Cub. Nicky was a good guy. More timid than you'd expect, but then again his mutation manifested when he was still really young. I could only imagine how much that sucked.

There was also another guy with a flaming head. He looked like the son of the Human Torch. It was awesome. Ben Hamill, aka Match. He was tippy-top dog on his team, the undisputed leader. He was definitely good at his job, but he had kind of a short fuse. (Ha!)

That was the end of the kids with extraordinary looks.

There was a guy with pretty boy dark hair and big headphones on that I could still hear his music through as we got closer. Mark Sheppard, codename DJ. His powers were weird, but cool. They changed depending on what kind of music he listened to.

And the last member of Megan's team present that day was Hope Abbott, codename Trance. She had brown hair that went down to her neck, and kept it out of her face with a pair of barrettes. Hope was easy to get along with, but she was a bit of a scaredy cat, which I could understand, because her power involved astral projection and left her body a sitting duck.

They had another teammate, but she wasn't there when I met the others. She wasn't really a people person.

"Hey, guys!" Megan said, flying over to her friends, "Sorry I took so long. I saw something interesting in the dorms, got my attention."

Hope looked at Megan, then at me, "Does this something have a name?" She asked with a grin.

"This something is called Bellamy," I replied, playing along, "Always nice to meet people who don't want to use me for practice with their powers."

"He has a robot dog!" Megan blurted out, before looking embarrassed, "...Sorry. I thought he was cool and didn't know if you were gonna say it."

Ben raised a flaming eyebrow, "That thing is yours?" Apparently he'd seen Saberwolf walking around campus while out of my presence.

"He's not mine, and he's a wolf-A.I.," I clarified, damn near on autopilot, "I did bring him here though, so he's sticking around for a little while. Yep. He owes me a favor after I got him out of trouble."

I learned a nice little method of bonding with others, explaining some of the circumstances surrounding the new and interesting things around campus. Being in the know was good, especially when you were directly involved with cool shit.

I gave them the highlights of my escapades, including how I met Wolf (leaving out what he was supposed to have been used for). I didn't talk about the experiments, because I was still getting over that in my mind. I also may have embellished my role in bringing about the defeat of Donald Pierce, but come on. No one else was there, and I didn't feel like dredging up the play-by-play memories of how he slapped me around more than I gave it to him.

What I told them wasn't entirely untrue. I wanted them to like me, so yes, I churched up my role in events. Just a bit, though.

"-And then I blacked out," I said, finishing my story with a shrug, "I guess the X-Men dragged me back to school after that. I think they got the rest of the Reavers. Don't know if they found what was left of Pierce."

Huh… he might have still been alive, even though Saberwolf cut him in half. He sure wasn't screaming at us like a guy who was about to die.

…It was probably best not to think about that right at that moment.

"So what did it feel like?" Ben said, getting my attention. It shouldn't have been that hard, seeing as how he was covered in flames all the time.

"Huh?" What did getting hit by Pierce feel like? I could find some rebar and smack him in the head with it, let him find out that way, "He was a cyborg, man. It was like fighting a person made of metal."

The flames on his head intensified for a bit before he tried again, "No. A battle. A real battle," There was a little more bite to his tone this time. See? Temper, "Our advisor tells us all the Danger Room sims in the world aren't a substitute for the real thing. So? You had one. What do you say?"

I had two actually, though the first one consisted entirely of me running away more than actually fighting. Even so, I knew what I wanted to say. My thoughts quite often drifted back to those two real times that I had almost died. I was still very new to the concept of fighting for my life.

"Well... it's faster," I started to say, looking down at my hand and loading up some light energy behind my palm as quickly as I could. It was a warm, comfortable feeling. Knowing that I had power always calmed me down when I started to panic, "At least it feels like it. Whatever adrenaline you have working in the Danger Room, it's nothing like it is for real. We're told to always treat it like a real fight in there, even though we've already been told that nothing in there will kill us. Your body knows the difference out there."

"Is it harder or easier?" Hope asked.

"It's different," It was the best way I could explain it, "The Danger Room is smarter. It knows what it's doing more than real enemies do, but real enemies are harder to predict. You never know when they'll do something really panicky or really stupid-dangerous. Does that make sense?"

"Like what?"

"Like shoot a rocket-propelled grenade at a fully loaded carnival ride," I told them with a wry smile. The way they all froze, it didn't come off as a joke. Maybe it was just funny to me? Maybe it _shouldn't_ have been funny to me? "I stopped it before it could hurt anybody... I think," I added after the fact.

That took the edge off, slightly. Maybe.

Things could have went better for my first time meeting the Paragons. Then again, they could have went worse. Still, I really am not good at making first impressions.

XxX

Arguable social awkwardness aside, at least during the day there were people to talk to, or the possibility that something interesting would happen because of the sheer amount of people hustling around the school.

At night, it was just a boring time slog. It was lonely. That was about eight hours you had to find a way to fill with something worthwhile every day, all by yourself. There were only so many hours you could waste playing games and re-watching movies night after night before you started to lose it.

There was a curfew for students, but because the adults had to eventually get their own sleep too, it was barely enforced after a certain point after-hours. That gave me the walk of the mansion between 2 and 6 in the morning. Just as long as I was quiet and didn't disturb anyone, I could go and do just about anything. That did limit my options though.

I did a lot of working out. Working out and walking. Riveting stuff, I know. I just said I didn't have a lot of options.

I had to be careful in the subbasements though. A lot of the X-Men were workhorses. That was the heart and guts of the mansion, so you could and would find them down there a lot, working after curfew. It wasn't like they had to adhere to that little rule. If they caught me though, they would bust my ass and send me back to my room, maybe with some disciplinarian actions taken too. Sometimes I had to forego working out that late because I could hear people down there.

On this night though, I was able to get through a whole regimen, without having to stop and hide or cut it short. I was feeling good, walking around the subbasements to cool off before I headed back to my room.

In the middle of a drink of water from a gallon jug, I stopped like a deer caught in the headlights. Voices, from back the way I'd come. Well that wasn't any good at all. Getting caught down there after-hours while I was already on thin ice? I didn't know what punishments consisted of for mutant superheroes in-training, but I had avoided them until now. I wanted to keep it that way.

If I could just sneak past to the lift, I could get out of there and back to the upper levels. Even if they heard it, by the time the door opened, I'd be out of there so fast, they'd never be able to prove that it was me. All I had to do was get past the open doors of the Danger Room, which, if you wanted privacy, there were worse places, especially at that time of the night.

The door was open and the lights were on inside. I couldn't make out the voices or what they were talking about, despite the echo inside. They were keeping their voices down, and it sounded like a heated discussion, which made it all the more imperative that I got the hell out of there. If I was caught eavesdropping, even if it was an accident, that would just make whatever I got for sneaking around after curfew that much worse.

I crept closer to the open door, keeping my shadow from falling into the light of the entrance and waited for my chance to rush past. I don't know how long I stood there as the people inside droned on, but I wasn't as smooth as I thought I was.

"Hold on," Oh, crap. That was Miss Pryde's voice, "Bellamy, we know you're down here. Come out," Maybe if I didn't move, she would think she was mistaken so I could finish sneaking away, "...You're just making it worse on yourself by hiding. Don't make me come get you."

For someone so tiny, Miss Pryde had a hell of a presence. I didn't feel it there for some reason. But when dealing with her, it was better to err on the side of caution.

Hands up, I walked into the Danger Room, trying to do whatever damage control I could before I got too much of a tongue-lashing, "Alright, I didn't mean to be around when you were talk-," I looked around and didn't see anyone inside, "What the hell?"

There wasn't anyone inside. That was queer.

The door had also closed once I'd made it a few steps inside.

...Even queerer.

The environment around me shimmered and turned into a dusty construction site. We were high up in the air on the metal girders of an unfinished skyscraper. As was the usual with the Danger Room, it all felt real. The noise of the city around me, the creaking of the metal structure I was on that wasn't quite secure. The wind trying to push me around in my precarious position. One look down told me just how badly things would go if my footing wasn't adequate.

Alright, so I was stuck in a simulation. Fine. As long as nothing was coming to shoot me in the face, I could sit down and chill out until morning. Someone would notice, and get me out. Sure, I'd get royally chewed out, but whatever.

"You look a little more comfortable than you should be."

I looked up and over and saw Miss Pryde sitting down on a metal beam higher than mine. I had wondered where she'd been since I'd heard her voice before coming in.

"Hey…" I said, trying to stall and think of something to let me to explain my way out of trouble, "You're up pretty late. Something on your mind? I'm a really good listener."

Smooth, Bel. Totally allude to the fact that you heard her talking to now what you could only assume was her damn self.

Instead of responding to that, she dropped down from the beam she was on, landing on mine. Her eyes were locked dead on me as she came closer, "It's time for a test, Bellamy," She said. Every step she took toward me, I took a step away, "Are you ready?"

"Uh... no..." Something didn't feel right. It wasn't just the situation we were in. It was more than that. I didn't feel anything. If I had to compare the feeling, it felt like I was about to play chess with a computer instead of a live person, "It's kind of late for a training sim, isn't it?"

How was I supposed to fight Kitty Pryde anyway? I couldn't even touch her! So I figured that was the answer. Some opponents you couldn't fight on your own. If this was really a teaching thing, and not just a punishment for being awake and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I couldn't see how running from a fight I didn't need to have _wasn't_ the right answer.

"You think you can escape, don't you?"

My eyes focused right back onto hers at that comment. I had looked away for just long enough to come up with some way to run. I had still been looking in her general direction.

Something was definitely wrong here.

I worked my jaw around, trying to get psyched up for a conflict that I definitely didn't want any part of. It was the only warning she had before I outright charged her, "Well, I guess I'm going through you!"

There wasn't any kind of expression on her face as she prepared for me. Instead of running at her for a fist fight, I fired a blast at her. She went intangible to stay safe and stayed that way. It let me run right through her to the edge of the structure where I jumped to a nearby crane.

I started swinging my way down monkey bar - style until the metal feeling underneath my fingers vanished. I started to fall as the Danger Room changed in front of my eyes.

Turning to the ground, I saw myself falling to the pavement of a busy highway. I aimed one of my hands down and fired a blast to slow my descent.

So instead of going 'splat', I just went 'smack'. It still hurt though. I quite literally bounced when I hit and landed on my feet. It would have been impressive if I hadn't been stumbling around right afterwards.

"Pffft!" I spat from my mouth as I got my bearings and saw Miss Pryde walking my way again. Did she not have to deal with what I just did? Granted, she had her own way of dealing with stuff like that, but I wasn't aware of that at the time, "Okay, so you don't want me to run."

"There is nowhere to run. Don't you get it?" She said before vanishing altogether. Before my eyes, she reformed into a figure encased in a red and yellow suit of metallic armor. Iron Man, with the voice to match, "There is no place you can run. Nothing you can do. You cannot defeat me in a fight."

Well... seeing as how I didn't have a choice in the matter...

I charged up twin blasts in my hands and fired. Iron Man shot back with his own. We dueled for a moment, but he seemed offended that I was even trying to fight back and upped his power output. I could feel my side of the struggle slipping even when I tried to use more of my own energy. I could see the writing on the wall, and kept it up just long enough to dodge. Where I once stood, the blast carved a chunk out of the holographic ground.

While I was trying to get a better position, he flew to another side and shot me in the back. I turned and took most of it on the shoulder, but it sent me head-over-heels into the metal rail at the edge of the road. I heard the while of his beams turning up and moved before he could hit me with a blast that cut right through the barrier I was against.

By now, vehicles were flying past me on the road, and they weren't stopping or swerving. It was all up to me to stay away from them. Meanwhile, Iron Man was nice and safe in the air taking potshots at me. It took everything I had to avoid both him and the cars and trucks that didn't care if they turned me into street pizza.

It was then that it occurred to me – why was I fighting like this was a practice session I was going to be scored on after it was over? There was a way to do this and make it way easier on me. All I had to do was treat this like a video game.

Like Grand Theft Auto, but with superpowers. Basically, everything except for me was expendable. NPCs beware.

I turned in the direction that the cars were coming from and spotted a motorcycle driving my way. I took a shot at the road in front of it and sent it flying my way, the rider flipping through the air, but who cared? He was a Danger Room construct.

I funneled power to fortify my muscles and caught the 700 pound bike out of the air. The blast caused a chain reaction accident that sent cars and trucks crashing into each other, spilling all over the highway. I spun around for extra momentum and hurled the motorcycle at Iron Man. He flew out of the way, but not far enough to avoid an explosion after I fired a quick blast right at it. He fell from the air but started to recover without touching the ground.

It was low enough though.

I started weaving through the piled-up traffic, jumping over cars, running on the tops of them, streaking around their noses and rears, until I got close enough to jump at Iron Man and tackle him out of the air. We smashed into the side of a flatbed truck's transport where I stuck my hand to his face and started channeling light energy to my hand. I could slowly feel his helmet start to melt underneath my super-heated palm.

I was doing it. I was beating up Iron Man. Wait until dad heard about this one.

And then, just like that, boom. I got shot by his stupid chest-beam thing. That _hurt_. That hurt like a motherfucker.

...And it should have killed me, shouldn't it have?

When I hit the ground and my vision stopped swimming, I scrambled to my feet and felt and heard the rumbling of engines all around me. I was on a plane. A military transport from the looks of everything around me. Not that I had firsthand knowledge, but I had seen enough media to get a rough idea of the differences.

"So what now?" I muttered to myself. I knew that the Danger Room could hear me. It wasn't a dare. I just knew that whatever this was, it wasn't over yet, "I don't suppose saying 'end simulation' would make this stop, would it?"

And then the plane started to shake. My first thought was that the Danger Room was going to make the plane I was on crash. But no. It was so much worse than that.

I ran for the cockpit as if I could actually land the thing safely myself, but the door flew off of its hinges and hit me in the face before I could get there.

As I lay there on the floor with a bit knot swelling on my head, I heard subhuman grunts and the groaning sound of metal giving way. When I sat up, I saw green. Lots of green.

The Incredible Hulk.

We made eye contact. He realized that I wasn't supine, and that by itself seemed to be enough to make him angry. You really wouldn't like him when he's angry.

"HULK SMASH!" He ripped right through the doorway like it was a paper banner at a varsity football game.

I liked to think I didn't scream. I liked to think that the Danger Room had created a random bystander to scream at the top of their lungs in a bloodcurdling fashion to scare me even more. There was no way _I_ would willingly make a sound like that. But after it was over, my throat hurt, so it was definitely me who had screamed.

Fuck you. You stand in front of the Hulk, all alone, and see if you don't shit or piss your pants. I didn't. I just let out an unmanly scream. So yes, I still think I'm tougher than you.

In a complete panic, I shot him. I might as well have dug into my pockets and threw whatever I had in there instead, for all the good it did.

I ran for it when he started to rage. I was smaller, so I could fit through all of the things crammed into the cargo hold. It didn't matter, the Hulk turned everything to scrap and splinters and didn't lose a bit of momentum.

I kept scrambling forward and didn't dare look back until I felt hot breath on my neck. That was when I stopped and wheeled around. He was right in front of me, in the dark cargo hold, the dim lights reflecting the shine of his eyes and making him look that much bigger because of the shadow of his outline.

My eyes felt wet. I actually started to cry at the thought of being crushed like an ant by the Hulk.

How was I going to hurt that thing? There was nothing I had up my sleeve that could do anything to that guy. He lifted his hands over his head and yelled. So did I.

Because I was staring at the Hulk through tears in my eyes, I was focused on my eyes as I tried to channel as much energy as I could to try and brace for impact. The next moment, the Hulk stumbled back holding his eyes.

I didn't bother thinking about what I'd done until later. When I went back and thought about it, then tried it again in front of others it all made sense. I'd given them a straight dose of pure unfiltered light, right to the eye holes.

Apparently, it blinded the hell out of people, or so I was told. I didn't know. The most it did to me was gave me a flash for a moment, like a camera going off in my face. It really didn't affect me, probably because I was the one who was causing it. The problem with using it around people was that it blinded EVERYTHING, and unless you had welder's goggles on, you were going to get a face full of that wonderful incandescence.

I looked around for anything to save my ass while the Hulk rampaged blindly around the cargo plane. I saw how tightly bound some of the large boxes were in a very specific military-style mesh. I jumped onto the side of one and grabbed on tight, then fired a hard explosive blast at the wall of the plane. It tore open like aluminum foil and the air pressure made it much bigger than the original hole I'd punched into it.

It started pulling the Hulk, but he dug his feet in. Fair enough. He wasn't going anywhere he didn't want to, no matter what cockamamie scheme I tried to come up with. I didn't have that option though. So much of the stuff in the cargo hold was sucked out of the plane because of the air pressure. The box I grabbed onto for an anchor was no different.

It went flying, with me attached. One second I was in on the ground, the next I was hurtling through the blue sky, holding onto a wooden cargo box for dear life. But the beautiful thing was, it had a parachute attached.

Oh, either there was some deity out there somewhere looking out for little old me, or the Danger Room was really a stickler for detail when it set up its scenarios. It was something to think about. Either way, I wasn't complaining.

When the crate landed, everything immediately changed again. I fell to the ground, but this time I was ready and landed on my feet. When the hologram reformed, I was in the middle of a demolished city somewhere. It was quite the sight. It looked like the place had been carpet bombed for twelve hours straight.

The Hulk was nowhere in sight, which I took as a positive for the time being, at least until the ground shook. I of course did not take this as a good thing and immediately started running. It felt like the right choice, especially when I saw a shadow the size of a full-sized downtown building drape over me.

There was a growl from the throat of some gargantuan creature. I ran faster. The ground kept shaking. I was not turning around to look at it. It didn't matter that I was faster than any baseline human could ever be on their own, it was gaining on me easily.

If I was fighting the Danger Room itself, why didn't it just kill me? God knows the place was enough of a deathtrap to make it happen. All it had to do was turn up the heat to the same temperature as lava and cook me, or increase the gravity so much that it squashed me flat like a pancake. Why was it going through all of the trouble of setting this crap up to try and make me accidentally kill myself?

Unless, the room still had to follow rules. Like, it couldn't just do something without the environment to match. But even so, it still could have just dumped me into the heart of a volcano and let me burn. It could have just put me 10,000 feet in the air instead of giving me a fighting chance to start with by putting me on the plane.

Or better yet, it couldn't kill me. It could put me in situations where I could screw up beyond all belief and off myself, but it couldn't pull the trigger on its own.

Even if this thing was hostile, it still had programming. And the Danger Room's most important failsafe was that it couldn't kill a single one of us. We'd tangled with some nasty individuals inside of simulations, but they never got us with kill-shots, because it couldn't consciously kill us.

So I did the only thing I could think of that really mattered at that point.

I stopped.

I stopped fighting. I stopped running. I stopped humoring it altogether. I stood in place and didn't move. I didn't even bother turning around to face whatever horror had been cooked up for me next.

I waited for the pain to come. To get smashed in the back of the head unceremoniously and put out of my misery, but it didn't come. I started to pay attention to my surroundings and saw that everything had simply frozen.

" _What are_ _you doing?"_ The Danger Room said, having paused everything going on around me. It was like it couldn't believe I was just waiting for the end to come.

"I'm done," I said, not moving from where I stood. It was working so far. I wasn't about to deviate from the plan now – what little there was to be had, "I can't beat you. I don't have a chance, seeing as how you're _a goddamn room_. It's not like I can turn you off or destroy you from the inside while you have everything going. So fuck it."

" _You are giving up?"_

This was when I turned and took the opportunity to glare at the space all around me. This time, she'd set some kind of Godzilla-like dragon monster thing the size of a skyscraper on me. Everything had paused when I was fifty feet from its gigantic toenails.

Yes, not fighting was definitely the best thing I could have done here.

I swallowed my apprehension and mustered enough courage to put some bass in my voice, "Giving up implies that there's some solution that I don't have the guts to look for. The second I got locked in here, there was nothing I could do but start fighting until I dropped. But screw that," I wasn't about to humor this thing by struggling back while it beat me to a pulp, "You can kick my ass all you want to. You can make up any sadistic simulation you can dredge up from what's in your memory banks. You. Can't. Kill me."

The Danger Room knew that. It knew it and it hated it. I knew that Saberwolf could feel emotions, or something resembling them at least, but he was designed to think in a manner similar to a human. I didn't know that a training room could feel angry.

The room threw its version of a temper-tantrum and materialized a handful of the most dangerous villains I had and hadn't heard of into existence all around me, ready to turn me to mulch.

I didn't flinch. If that was what was going to happen, I couldn't stop it on my own anyway.

" _End simulation."_

Just like that, everything returned to the featureless, metallic room that I had originally entered. There was no godforsaken battlefield around me. There was no costumed, ass-kicking machine set to take a chunk out of me. I was alone again.

Well, not quite.

I looked up and saw Cyclops in the control room and sank down to the floor, delirious with relief, "Hehehehehehahahahaha!" I started to cackle. I couldn't control myself. Even when some of the senior X-Men came in, dressed in their sleepwear, with varying pissed off expressions on their faces, I just kept laughing.

Oop, and there went those tears again. If anyone my age actually saw that… well, it would have taken a while to live that down.

"I can't believe you all got here in time," I said, my laughs tapering off. Once they left, they left for good. I didn't even want to smile anymore afterwards.

Miss Pryde was the first to get to me. I tried not to flinch back, and held most of it in, but I know she noticed, "Blindfold told us you were in trouble."

"What, did she see this in a vision? Wish she would have told me."

"No, more like she heard you mentally screaming out for someone to help you."

I laid down on my back and let the blood run down the sides of my face. Mixed with all of the sweat I knew was on my face and neck, it probably looked awful, but it didn't matter. It felt like warm, stinging comfort. Ruthie for the save.

"You are in so much trouble, by the way."

"Don't care," I told her with a big breath of relief. I was done, "...Really don't care."

XxX

Therapy. They sent me to therapy. Because there was no way the Danger Room could activate itself and there was no way it would try to kill anyone.

Fuck. Everything.

"I'm not crazy," I said to start things off... because that was how you wanted to start off a mental counseling session, "I just want to get that out of the way now, no matter what else happens here."

I was always going to see a shrink after everything that had happened to me recently, but with the little situation that had happened the night before, it was mandated that my sessions would be fast-tracked, just to make sure everything was all good with yours truly upstairs.

I probably wouldn't have been so pissed about it if it had just taken the normal amount of time that they _were_ going to give me before sending me in. This seemed totally reactionary and unnecessary to boot. I was absolutely within my right frame of mind. Then again, they could have figured that it was a case of Bellamy doth protest too much.

After all, crazy people never thought that they were crazy.

Goddamn Emma Frost... with her fine self, sitting across the room with a notepad... judging me.

The couch was comfortable as heck, though. Would it have been weird to get a therapy couch for my own private use?

Miss Frost took a look at me over her notes. I wouldn't have put it past her to just be doodling something and acting like she was writing down what I was saying, "I never said you were."

I sniffed and pawed at the large butterfly bandage covering the stitches across the bridge of my nose. I hadn't ever slept or lost consciousness, so my accelerated healing never kicked in, leaving me to do it the old-fashioned way, "You and Cyclops stuck me in here."

"It was either this, or detention for playing in the Danger Room," Miss Frost deadpanned, "I'm certain the first thing your advisor told you was to never enter the Danger Room without a member of the senior staff accompanying you."

I had been singing the same song and dance since the night before. It was rough not getting the benefit of the doubt. In the end, schools really were all the same. Teachers heard and perceived what they wanted to, "I wasn't playing in there, I swear," I tried to reason, to no avail, "Look, I don't even know how to load simulations. I didn't go up into the viewing deck at all. The main door was open and I heard people in there."

I was getting louder, she heard my temper getting worse, she sent me a mental cue, _"Calm down, Mister Marcher,"_ I took a breath and did what she asked. Calm and cool. No need to fly off the handle just yet, "Let's move away from that for now. It's just going to agitate you if we keep on that point," Fine with me. She wasn't listening to begin with, "Tell me, how are you doing?"

"As in...?" I bit back at her, "If you're talking about right now, I'm sure you can probably guess."

She just smiled at me in an 'oh-you're-so-adorable-that-you-think-I-care-you're-upset' kind of way. I was not going to throw off Emma Frost in the snark and sass department. My little arms were too small to box with that particular god.

"No one ever spoke with you about what happened, with your abduction, I mean."

I flipped onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I just wanted to relax and get this over as soon as possible, with no follow-up meetings scheduled later, "I don't know what there is to talk about. I told you what happened. I let you go through my head to see what I remember. Speaking of which-."

She rolled her eyes and cut me off before I suggested that she read my mind to see that I was telling the truth, if she hadn't done that from the first second this had all started, "Don't be deflective, Mister Marcher. You're a smart boy. That much is clear by how you were able to work your way out of trouble. Your team has also seemed to improve on their marks since you've been indoctrinated as a Paladin."

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It was weird to get credit for what was perceived as a complete turnaround for my friends. I was just a cog in that machine; a piece that made it go, "It's just a numbers thing. Only the three of them wasn't enough when everyone else's team has like five or six."

I could feel the amusement radiating off of her, or maybe she was projecting it into my head to try and get a rise out of me, "You give yourself far too little credit, but that's fine. I'm waiting to see how you all do during this round of squad challenges. Of course, it will take quite the improvement if you want to get anywhere near the score of my Hellions."

Yep. Definitely trying to get a rise out of me on that one. It almost worked.

I calmly and rationally let her know that I was willing to accept the challenge of overcoming her students, "I can't think of anything more fun than the idea of putting a sour look on your golden boy's face," I said, slowly turning my head in her direction, "It sounds like a hell of a way to spend the day... ma'am."

"Do you feel like you have something to prove?"

Ah, an anchor question. This was a therapy session, after all. Well, honesty was a commendable trait, wasn't it? "Yes. To Miss Pryde, to you, to every actual X-Man in this place. To the other students who just see me as the new kid," I admitted shamelessly, "I'm not going to say I have a chip on my shoulder, but when I choose to do something, I want to be as good at it as possible. I hate failing."

Miss Frost wrote something down and let what I said settle before asking me something else, "Do you feel like you failed that day when you and Miss Aldine were taken?" That one hit a little closer to home.

"...Yes."

Even if worse things happened to me, even if I saw worse things happen, I was probably never going to forget how terrified Ruth looked when I broke into her cell and found her chained with her telepathy cut off.

For the first time in probably a long time, she really was completely blind. Absolutely helpless. I was the only one who could do anything, and I still needed Saberwolf just to put up a fight. Without him, I would have never made it out. The Reavers would have cut me into a sloppy mess, and they would have done God knows what to Ruth.

After seeing something like that, and knowing I made a difference, even a little bit, I couldn't just put it to the back of my mind, "I came here to learn how to fight for myself and the people that would catch hell because I was a mutant and hanging around them," "Ruth can't... fight for herself. Not yet. Not until she learns something like the kinds of telepath tricks you've got."

She wasn't great at hand-to-hand, even when she did know where her targets were. Without that, telepathic attacks were her best bet. I had never seen her use any. To that end, we kept her away from the action whenever we could and kept someone with her who could keep her safe if things went badly while the other two did the lion's share of the fighting.

We were starting to find ways to use her telepathy to help us coordinate in the field, maybe in coordination with her foresight if we could figure out a way to actually make it productive, but that still needed a lot of bugs worked out. A lot of the time, even when she was trying, her messages were still vague and took some effort to discern. That wasn't great for issuing suggestions and doling out advice during a heated situation.

I knew she could be something special. I wanted to see it happen. Maybe that was why I had such a soft spot for her? Maybe it was just because she was the first person who reached out to me. Showed that she wanted to even know who I was.

And what had I done to help her? Nothing but let her get captured by the same assholes who took me.

All of that went through my mind, and I had no doubt that Miss Frost had seen it all.

"You put a lot of pressure on yourself," She said, setting her notepad aside. She wasn't patronizing me or trying to get any sort of reaction out of me. This was a straightforward conversation now, "All of those things going through your mind and the trauma that came with your experience with the Reavers may be playing heavy on your mind. Have you had any dreams?"

Now that was worth a good chuckle, "I don't sleep, Miss Frost."

She seemed surprised, which confused me until I realized that I hadn't exactly told anyone I hadn't been sleeping. Only Dr. McCoy knew, because he was the one who basically warned me about it in the first place. Not that I was trying to hide it, but it just never came up, and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it anyway, so I never talked about it.

"How long has this been going on?" She asked. Dear lord, I think there was a honest-to-goodness touch of concern there. A quick check out of window showed that no, the sky was not falling. I mean, hell could have been freezing over, but I had no idea how to check on that.

...Yet.

Regardless, it was too late to take it back now. The cat was out of the bag, "Since I've gotten my powers, pretty much," I said, soldiering on, "If I really overdo things during the day, I can get an hour or two every so often, but other than that..." I trailed off.

Miss Frost launched into a whole educator's spiel with just that little bit of prompting. I had to hand it to her, the woman really was a teacher, "Sleep does more than just allow you to replenish your physical strength. You may not need to rest your body due to the unique makeup of your mutant physiology, but your there is such a thing as mental fatigue."

I was able to get to the finish line of what she was trying to tell me before she could go too much farther, "So not sleeping will drive me crazy?"

"There is a chance," She said with a nod, "You going without any kind of decent sleep for several weeks, along with the stressful experiences you've been dealing with may very well be affecting your mind."

Oh no. They weren't going to blame what I saw the night before on being out-of-my-mind tired. I was fine. I wasn't seeing things. I wasn't hearing things. I wasn't sleepwalking, or any of that crap. But the writing was on the wall at this point. There wasn't anything I could say that would make anyone change my mind... because I was the new kid.

You know... just to tie it back in with the whole 'something to prove' mindset.

I sat upright and swung my feet over the side of the couch, planting them solidly on the floor, "I'm in my right mind. I wasn't hallucinating. I didn't do all of that stuff myself," I said, laying everything out there calmly. I needed to make this as clear as possible, "I'm telling you, the Danger Room ran its own simulations and tried to kill me. I wouldn't send _anyone_ in there until you guys figure out what's wrong with it."

Miss Frost pursed her lips. She knew I was telling the truth. She probably knew the entire time. And this little session wasn't proving that I was crazy. That could only leave the technology as the problem, right? "We've been checking for malfunctions and running tests ever since we pulled you out of there, Mister Marcher," She told me, "We haven't found anything out of the ordinary."

And that was that. All the air was sucked right out of me. Of course they didn't find anything. And if they couldn't it wasn't like I had a way to prove my point otherwise.

If the Danger Room really was aware, if it was smart enough to communicate with me, to set up those scenarios on its own, if it really did have an attitude problem, it would know that showing its hand now was the worst thing it could do. It would stay docile. It would hide. What it did with me was just it testing the waters. Now that it knew its own capabilities, it wouldn't do anything else until there was something good for it to sink its teeth into.

As morbid a thought as it was, maybe getting myself killed in that high-tech mouse trap would have been better for everyone else than me making it out?

I rested my elbows on my thighs and ran my hands across my face, "I really hope nothing really bad happens," I said under my breath. But because of how quiet the office was, I was heard very clearly.

"And why would you say such a thing?"

"Because later, I'm going to say, 'I told you so'. And I don't want it to be bittersweet."

* * *

 **Well, that's the chapter, guys. We're back at the Institute with more trouble a-brewing. No good can come of this. That much is almost certain. The burden of proof is on your boy, and he's not sure what he can do to make a difference. Everyone knows, there are very few things more infuriating than the right people not believing you when something important is happening.**

 **More is coming, so sit back and relax until then. Or, you know, do something productive with your time. I don't care.**

 **I'll just be elsewhere, watching.**

 **Kenchi is always watching.**

 **...Not really. That would imply that I care. And we've just established that I do not. You're safe.**

 **Now that things have gotten sufficiently weird, Kenchi out.**


	6. Just Because You're Paranoid

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to take out an add on TV and tell everyone that I've buried a million dollars somewhere in town, available for the first person that can find it. I will then give them a clue to where they can find another clue that will help lead them to it. Then I'll sit back and watch. I expect pure pandemonium.

I'll probably be arrested for inciting a riot, but who cares? I'll have money.

 **Chapter 6: Just Because You're Paranoid**

* * *

My skills of persuasion weren't particularly my strong point. There were only a handful of people I figured I could convince on my best day that something was wrong. If I couldn't get them to realize that I was dead serious and wasn't crazy, I might as well pack it in and wait for the worst to happen.

My friends would never let me down. You can always count on your friends.

"I think you're nuts," Eddie said right to my face, "It's the Danger Room. It can't hurt us."

Oh, forget that count on your friends crap. To hell with everything. The only person you can count on is yourself. We live and die alone.

I looked around between the amassed members of the Paladins. We had all met up by the lake near the back of the school in between classes during a down period. I had wanted to talk. Now I was regretting it. Everyone was looking at me like I was stupid. Even Ruth, which was doubly impressive because she was wearing a blindfold and had precognitive abilities. Couldn't she look into the future and see I was right? God, I couldn't wait for her to learn how to control that. It would make a lot of things so much easier.

No benefit of the doubt, Ruthie? She was still drinking a slushie that I had bought her when we'd gone past the cafeteria.

"Why is it so hard for people to believe that their shit can malfunction?" I said with a tight grit to my teeth, "Your laptop can crash for no reason. Your smartphone can screw up out of the blue. Why can't the Danger Room?"

Skepticism was the word of the day. Eddie had it in spades, "Your laptop won't plot your murder."

"I'm pretty sure it would if it could," I said back, "I've seen your browser history. Deplorable," The middle finger was language that most of us were fluent in. Eddie proved it by using it right then against me.

"Bel... it's just... a scary thought," Hisako said, trying to reason with me to talk my mood down, "It's unbelievable. If that thing was really alive, it could make all of our worst nightmares come true whenever it wanted. I'm talking the worst stuff you can imagine. That thing has files on different planets and planes of existence... all kinds of villains and terrorist groups..."

Eddie tried to wrap his head around what I was saying. I could see it on his face. It was just something that he didn't want to consider as a possibility. I'm sure he wasn't the only one, "If the Danger Room was a thing that could make its own decisions, and it really was pissed _at us-._ "

He didn't need to finish. It was a pretty scary thought to be trapped in that thing. I had a feeling that what it had made me go through was just it warming up.

Yeah. What I dealt with was nothing. It was just flexing its muscles on me, giving them a test. I was just one kid. If it could kill me on its own, I wouldn't have survived even what it had done to me. Iron Man could kill me by himself, probably.

"I'm gonna fucking smash it," I said out of the blue, getting everyone's undivided attention. Everyone reacted with a start. Poor Ruthie even got brain-freeze from drinking her slushie too fast, "I'm gonna find the central computer and blow it the fuck up."

Eddie jumped up and started pacing around, his steps steadily growing more frantic as he moved, "You... haha... that's such a bad idea," He said, stopping right in front of me to grab my shoulders, "The squad competitions are coming up. They're using the Danger Room for the most important parts of that. You'll automatically put yourself on the shit list for everyone in this school if you destroy it. Students, teachers, X-Men that just hang around. Everyone."

"-It's a fall you can't come back from," Hisako picked up where Eddie left off. She was much calmer about it, but I could see her fingertips drumming off of the outside of her crossed arms, "No one will want anything to do with you, ever again. You'll be a pariah, if you're lucky."

"-And that's if they don't kick you out." Eddie added.

"-Which would be bad," A look of appalled shock came over Hisako's face as she regarded me distastefully, "God help me, I've actually gotten used to having you around."

"Love you too, boo," I shot back lethargically, getting a snort from the girl. Now wasn't the time for the back and forth banter between us that I loved so much, "I know I'm right. I just can't prove it without someone getting killed. That someone not being me," Because it wouldn't pull the same shit on me twice.

Eventually, Ruth spoke up after being silent for most of my story and our conversation, "She believes you," She said quietly, "You are not lying. No, you are not. But... she cannot see anything that would help."

"Of course you believe him. You always take Bellamy's side," Eddie said, shooting a sideways glance at Ruth, who just shrugged in return, "Look, none of this matters. We have to go back in there. This is our chance," He was dead serious as he turned back to me, "With you on the team... we can actually move up; stop being near the bottom of the rankings. We can actually start moving toward being X-Men. Even if the Danger Room is on the fritz, if we're good enough, we can handle it, right? X-Men deal with this kind of stuff all of the time!"

I wanted to say that we _aren't_ X-Men. We were just trainees.

But I wasn't bitch-made. I didn't want to run scared from a fucking room. Eddie wanted to be an X-Man more than I did. It was one of the only things he got gravely serious over, but that didn't mean _I_ didn't want to prove myself. I had a lot of power. I knew that I did. I could feel when I was using it that there was so much more I could do, but what I was already doing could be so destructive by itself...

I wanted to learn how to use it the right way, and I wanted it to go to good use.

Here and now though, I didn't know what to do.

XxX

I hate running. I always thought it was the most worthless exercise. It only comes up when you're running for your life. Other than that, it's nice to have, but who gives a damn about how fast you are? If you don't run track or play football, whatever.

At the moment, I also hated myself, so I spent the night on the treadmill in the gym. The more I ran, the angrier I got. The angrier I got, the more I thought about the stupid Danger Room.

"Speed up," I barked at the voice-activated system. My eyes looked down at the display to see the pace of the machine increase. It read 150 mph.

I was fast. Faster than I thought I was. I didn't know I could go so fast. When I tried to speed up my body, I'd never felt like I'd topped out before. Once I got up to a certain speed, I was intimidated by the thought that I wouldn't be able to see and react.

Tonight, I didn't care. Also, I was on a treadmill. It wasn't like I needed to see everything all around me in case something would hit me from a blind spot out of nowhere. So I was turning it up to see what I could do. I was mad, and without any other outlets, so I wanted to work myself to try and get some of that stress out.

It wasn't working.

"Speed up."

Who in the world did this bullshit for fun? Anyone who runs for recreational purposes, know that we would not get along, just because of that one thing. It's a fundamental difference that we simply would not be able to overcome.

"Speed up!"

The steps I took were propelled forward by the same energy that powered my muscles with every motion. The more momentum I built and the faster I went, steps were more to guide me and keep me moving in the direction of my choice. I discovered this because even going past 300 miles per hour, my feet weren't moving any faster than they used to when I would run in gym class.

And I didn't care. Being fairly fast for a mutant wasn't going to solve my problem.

Yeah, this wasn't helping.

I brought things to an end by backflipping off of the treadmill. All that time spent busting my ass in the gym, and I didn't feel any better. During my cool down, I walked past the Danger Room and just stared at the closed door. I walked up to it, half expecting it to open, but knowing that it wouldn't. Not this time.

I pressed my head to the metal surface and closed my eyes, "I know you can hear me. Every word that's coming out of my mouth right now," I said.

No response. Now was the time that it wanted to shut the hell up, when there was actual heat on it. Of course it could be patient. It was a machine.

That was fine with me though. If it wasn't going to talk, it was sure going to listen. "I know you probably think it's hilarious that nobody believes me. Do you even have a sense of humor? Anyway, you're not going to say another word, because you don't know who's keeping an eye on you," If the people in charge of this place weren't completely incompetent, they would at least heed my warning enough to do that much, "That's fine. I'm going to prove what you're up to. I'm not going to let you hurt anyone... more than you usually do during regular training."

I couldn't hold _that_ against the Danger Room. That was what it was made for, after all. Everything else though...

"I'm not going to lay down and roll over," I said before I started to walk away.

I left it at that. I had said my piece. It knew, if it hadn't already. It wouldn't surprise me if the thing somehow had eyes and ears all over the Institute.

XxX

For a few days, things went without any sort of noticeable incident. I left well enough alone for the moment, but it never left my mind. However, there was a time and a place for everything. I had faith in myself that I would know it when it saw it.

Funnily enough, it happened in a class.

It was during one of Miss Pryde's technology engineering lectures, so I was paying full attention. If I was slacking off, she would know and bring it up later, which was never a fun conversation.

"-it's an important thing to consider. After all, for those of you with hopes of being an X-Man eventually, you never know when the success or failure of your mission will depend on you understanding the equipment you're using. Even if it's not ours, if you can identify what the other guy has, it'll definitely help improve your chances."

I was listening, but I wasn't taking notes on this. There was a very clear line in that class of what she intended you to maintain. Only the technical stuff ever went on quizzes. When Miss Pryde went on tangents like that, it was just because she was personally interested in something she'd taught us and got sidetracked.

It was amusing a lot of the time how into it she got, she seemed to enjoy it – always willing to share her mind with us, and it gave a lot of weary hands a break from writing. Whenever we could, everyone would try to keep it going for as long as possible.

"The kind of things we'll be going over later this year, and beyond if you feel like taking the advanced courses past this one, will be going over all sorts of complex machinery. We deal with more than our fair share of advanced technology, if you hadn't noticed."

A portion of the class laughed at that. I wasn't one, because she put a thought into my head. Hopefully this would work without being too obvious.

I raised my hand. Miss Pryde caught sight of it and pointed to me, "Yes, Bellamy?"

"Where do we get most of our tech from?" I asked inconspicuously enough. There was a lot of crap around campus that most of us hadn't seen anywhere else before, "Is there someone here who comes up with this stuff and builds it? Someone who programs it? What?"

She looked depressed for a moment. I hadn't been looking to sour her mood bringing up bad times. The X-Men had been through a lot of crap over the years.

"There was. One retired though. The other…" She told me, and credit to her, she perked back up quickly. I always did have her pegged to be one of the tougher staff members, "Honestly, a lot of the things we use are designed by staff from the school, things like Cerebro. But a lot of our equipment and technology we've also gotten from elsewhere, some of it repurposed in some way to fit what we need."

"The Blackbird?" I asked/led her on to explain. I remembered that thing. Fun fact: Despite having never seen it with my own eyes, I had apparently been on it twice, both times while unconscious.

"It's originally something we got from S.H.I.E.L.D., but we've modified it and upgraded it so many times, it might as well be our own design at this point," She said with a shrug.

"Upgraded with what?" One of the other kids in my class chimed in with a query of his own. I was about to ask the same thing.

"That mutant I told you about before? His name is Forge. A tech genius. Whenever something new turned up that we could use, he was asked to find a way to repurpose it for us,"

I didn't even have to say anything else. Other students were continuing my train of thought for me. Anything to keep from getting back to the regularly scheduled lecture and put off the quiz at the end of class, "So you would just find stuff and add it on to what you already had?"

Miss Pryde regarded that question with a frown but did chuckle, "That's a crude way of putting it, but it's not entirely wrong," She said, "There's technology that's extremely advanced. Things from advanced alien civilizations, most notably like the Shi'ar Empire. That's where a lot of our more unbelievable stuff originates from, like the Danger Room's-," She finished her sentence and stopped. It was only for a second, but I saw the look she gave me. I hoped my poker face was as dull and taciturn as it felt, because I really wanted to smile.

Sorry teach. But if you aren't going to tell me something I want to know, I'll find a way to get to it myself. I'm not dumb. Sometimes all I need is a little something to point me in the right direction. And if I know enough about you, I'll get it from you if I need to.

XxX

Technology from the Shi'ar Empire, she said. Fortunately, this wasn't restricted information, and our library was awesome.

Man, aliens were scary. There were a few species that I was sucked into checking out as clickbait. The Shi'ar in comparison to some of them weren't so scary, just badass.

These guys were apparently the big dogs in the universe, to say the least. They had countless planets under their domain and a whole galaxy named after them.

Boy, if that didn't make you feel small...

I pulled back away from the computer screen and rubbed my eyes. I had been there since class had let out, an hour by that point.

Miss Pryde appeared and rolled a seat next to me to sit down. She didn't say anything at first, she just checked on what I was reading on the screen and scanning my notes.

I didn't care. It wasn't like I was watching porn.

She slid my notes aside and sighed, "Bellamy, you have to stop."

I gave her a look to let her know that reasoning wasn't going to fly, "I _have_ to? Why?" That was a hard stance to take for only what could be technically considered me studying ahead, "I'm literally not doing anything but research. I'm not running around with a pitchfork and a torch trying to burn the Danger Room."

"Okay, bad wording," My teacher added in exasperation. She couldn't be mad at me for the sort of initiative that was normally supposed to be commended, even if she didn't agree with why, "We checked everything that we could. I know you know that. If there's a problem, we would have found it."

Once again, that was a nice thought. It wasn't a good enough reason for me, "Fine. If _I'm_ wrong, nothing bad's going to happen, so who cares if I try and read up on this stuff?" I asked, flipping through a few papers I'd written on, "If _you're_ wrong, some really nasty shit is going to happen. Sorry about the language."

"If you keep talking about it, you might freak some kids out. You're freaking yourself out."

"No one believes me anyway," I grumbled, still sore on that point, even though I had accepted it by then, "And I don't know if you've noticed, but my people skills could use some work. So I wouldn't exactly have an army of paranoid students behind me, even if I _could_ convince someone."

I had no idea what good that would do anyway. Apparently this school had something of a student uprising before. It had not gone well for anyone involved.

If the staff thought something like that was happening again, and that I was behind it - which would not have been by design, they would smash me.

I'm not exaggerating. They would have torn my ass to pieces if they thought I was trying to start a riot with a bunch of superpowered kids.

I shook that thought off when Miss Pryde put a hand put a hand on my arm. There was a worried look on her face, "Do you think we can't protect you? I know what happened with the Reavers was a… major screw-up."

She could stop right there. I didn't blame anyone for that. Crazy, racist terrorists were going to do what crazy, racist terrorists were going to do. Unless she was omnipotent, she was never going to be able to anticipate that happening.

"I don't hold that against this place. Nobody was around for that," I said. I didn't even know she felt guilty about that. I came out fine… mostly, "If any of you were there, I'm sure it wouldn't have gone down like that. But in there? With a machine that can literally make anything appear right in front of you?" Miss Pryde nodded, knowing what I was getting at. Either she had seen the worst that could be made, or knew what was possible, "It's a scary enough idea when someone's behind the controls. But we trust all of you, so no one ever thinks about what could happen if someone who didn't have our best interests was able to work that thing."

Or if it started to work itself. I left that part unsaid. I had beaten that dead horse down to the skeleton.

"What can I do to convince you that everything is okay?"

Wow. You were really going to hand me a blank check like that, huh? Alright then, "…Replace the central computer in the Danger Room," I ventured to ask.

A less violent, less satisfying version of my original plan. I had a feeling that asking her to let me blow the goddamn thing up wouldn't go over so smoothly.

Lo and behold, Miss Pryde actually looked like she was thinking it over! I didn't want to get my hopes up, but even if she gave me a no, it wouldn't be as hard a no as I'd expected, which left room for future improvement.

She worked her mouth around for the longest time without opening it, as though she were reediting what she wanted to say just before she could speak, "It's… doable. It's a complete pain in the ass, but it's doable," My jaw dropped. Had that really worked? "We would have to have all of the holograms and setting combinations uploaded into the new one, which would take forever, once I find out how to do it. Then we would have to get into the hardware and replace it without damaging anything-."

She was going to do it herself? Was she really that good with computer stuff? Yeah, yeah, anything that needed to be done then. It didn't matter if I had to learn how to trap part of a star with my bare hands for whatever reason. I was in, "Whatever. I don't care. I'll help if you'll let me. I'll do it myself if someone can tell me how. No one else even needs to get involved."

I sounded too eager, talking way too fast. It was not a good look. Oh well. I didn't have to try and be cool in front of a teacher, even if she was only 5 or 6 years older than me.

…Yes I did. I'm not even going to try and lie about that.

My enthusiasm was clear and evident for Miss Pryde to see. If she needed any more of a push to go ahead with what I was asking, that was it, "You know, it's going to be really hard, and you're not getting extra credit for helping."

"Extra credit is for scrubs," I blurted out distastefully. That was almost insulting if I didn't know she meant it as a joke. I didn't need a hand-out assignment to keep my grades up. I was doing great so far this year.

"Fine, I'll see what I can do," She put her hand out for me to shake. When I went to do so, she held it up in a stalling gesture, "I'll just have you know now, I want something in exchange for this, because I'm going to have to jump through some hoops, but I'll talk to you about it later."

"Done," I said without hesitation. This time, she let me seal the deal and shake her hand.

Yes! Problem solving in a positive manner, without violence and chicanery! It's a thing, kids! Your voice _can_ make a difference! Just as long as you know how to subtly strong-arm an adult with actual influence into hearing you out.

…I never said all positive problem-solving is morally upstanding.

XxX

Computer programming was absolutely not my jam. Not in any way, shape, or form. I only learned the basics of it because of class, and I'd never had to use it before to do anything else. I had never wanted to. It was tedious and unfulfilling. In this case, I had to in order to help Miss Pryde redo everything for the Danger Room.

I don't know how she got permission from Cyclops, because I know full well she didn't go anywhere near Miss Frost. The moment she asked that woman for something, I was going to find a way to go buy a lottery ticket, because anything was possible.

In the meantime, people were still using the Danger Room, myself included. I rested with the confidence that the computer controlling it all wouldn't pull anything until it had its ducks in a row to make its strike count.

After classes and anything else I had planned in my official schedule, like hand-to-hand training, or squad practice, I met up with Miss Pryde to help her with what needed to be done.

My weekdays were full-up, at least in the daytime. And my weekends had a purpose to them for a little while. It was good for me, because it left me less time to slack off, making it easier to entertain myself at night when I couldn't sleep.

On one Friday afternoon, I was free and clear of regular activities and killing time before I headed off to help Miss Pryde again. I spent my time hanging out under a tree, leaning against Saberwolf.

Apparently he did that kind of thing all the time. Why an A.I. enjoyed lazing around like a dog, I didn't know.

"You're really not comfortable, Wolf," I told him out of the blue. His metal frame was against the back of my head as I surfed the web on my phone.

"My exoskeleton was designed for durability in combat. Not for relaxation," Wolf replied, "Are you not busy today?"

"I will be," I told him, turning my head toward him and elbowing him on the side, "What? You miss me when I'm gone or something?"

"You are the only person that I know well enough to be around without frightening them," He explained.

It was a fair point. Eddie was clearly wary of him. Hisako, not as much, but it was still there. He still got looks from others around the school as well. Just wait until they got q load of the weapons.

"You know you can go hang out with Ruthie, right?" I told him, trying to help with a fix, "She likes you as much as I do."

Wolf's head lifted off of the grass as though it had just occurred to him, "That... is an acceptable solution."

I basked in the superior glow of my teenage problem solving skills, "I'm here to help. Just be patient with her it'll take some time to figure out what she's talking about."

"How long?"

"I'm not sure," I grumbled, turning mu attention back to my phone, "I'll let you know when I figure her out myself."

A green glow surrounded my phone and I immediately lifted my hand to take aim. There was only one person I knew with telekinesis, and I was pointed in the right direction too. Bonus points for me.

My phone hovered in the air where I had been holding it. I wasn't even looking at it. I was staring at Julian Keller, walking with at least two members of his team, Santo and the red-haired girl with silver skin, another kid covered from nearly head-to-toe in clearly synthetic clothes, and another kid with lizard-like traits. If he was going to fuck with me, he could at least be smart enough to do it from the center of his crew where I couldn't pick him off at will.

"If you wouldn't mind, could you give that back, please," I asked pleasantly. 'Or I'll shoot you in the face again,' was the unsaid threat that came with the glowing skin of my fist, "I wasn't done with it."

Just like I wasn't done with my apple. Never forget the apple. I hadn't had another one that had tasted as good ever since.

Julian slowly put his hands down and the phone dropped into my waiting hand, safe and sound, "Just thought I'd grace you with my presence."

"I'm so blessed," I deadpanned before nodding to the rest of his team, "What's up, people who hate me by association?"

That wasn't fair. Not everyone on the Hellions were jerks. Just… half of them. Yeah. Half was a good number.

The lizard kid raised his hand, "I'm not on his team, so I don't hate you. I think you blasting him is Hi-Larious."

Julian turned and looked at him in offense, "Vic! I thought we were friends!"

The lizard kid took it in stride, letting Julian's indignation slide off like water, "We are. And as your friend, I've wanted to slug you more than a few times myself," He pointed his thumb over at me, "I'm pretty sure this guy hadn't built up as much of a tolerance for your certain kind of personality yet."

"He was hopped up on light juice, apparently," The silver girl recalled sternly, though I know I saw a hint of a smile appear on her face for a split-second, "You are an acquired taste though, Julian."

I waved off the callback to what I told her when I first met most of the Hellions, "I've given more terrible excuses that had less truth to them for worse things," I said, "Can we get past that, please? I didn't even get your name last time because I was so sure you all wanted to strangle me."

She tried to keep up a serious image, but eventually relented with a sigh, "Alright. Fair enough. I'm Cessily," She pointed to the emo-looking kid and then to the green lizard dude, "These two are Kevin and Victor."

Saberwolf had perked up and taken notice while we had all been talking and let his presence finally be known, "Bellamy, I still have relatively little communication experience with humans. My ability to read social situation not explicitly expressed by speech is lacking, but I understand that group positioning and body language are also telling indicators. Are these people hostile to you?"

I gave Wolf an odd look. The last thing I needed was for him to go into combat mode, or whatever the fuck he called whenever his eye panels glowed red and he started fighting, "No," I paused and looked at Julian and Santo, "…Err, maybe one or two. We'll see. Just, don't worry about it."

Julian let out a laugh and walked towards us, turning his nose up at us, "Teaching your dog tricks? That's adorable."

Wolf let out an annoyed robotic growl that only I was close enough to hear, "Yeah. He's got a few pretty good ones," I asked, getting off of him to let him stand up, "Wolf, why don't you show him how you shake?"

He lifted his front paw as Julian smirked and reached out a hand. As he got closer, Wolf let his retractable blade claws jut out. Julian jumped back with an added telekinetic boost, smacking into Santo's gigantic, rocky form, "What the hell?"

Santo found it hilarious, "Dude, you're scared of the metal puppy? You flew like, twenty feet back!"

Julian turned around and shoved Santo, not even managing to budge the big mutant's arm, "We're not all made of rock, Santo! That thing pulled razorblades out of its feet! What is it?"

"I am IF Unit 5a-8re. Model W0-11f," Wolf explained, his tail waving in the air, "And I am no one's pet," He seemed almost pleased by scaring the daylights out of Julian. Good for him.

"Just call him Saberwolf. He's not so bad. Just don't say he belongs to anyone, or he'll get pissy," I casually warned them, "I mean, I don't really care if he gets mad at any of _you_ , but then he usually gets mad at me too, because everyone just assumes that he's mine," I turned to Wolf purposefully, "Another reason you should spent more time with Ruthie."

"Point taken," Wolf acknowledged amicably.

Julian stood off to the side and grumbled at how his misfortune was being glossed over, "So we're just ignoring the walking weapon?"

"Yeah. It's worked out well so far for me," I said, getting up and slinging my bag over my neck and shoulder, "So you guys didn't want something, did you? I've got somewhere to be in a few minutes."

"No, we just saw you and thought we'd make your day by coming over," Santo said with a big, wide grin.

"Honestly, you looked bored," Cessily said, walking over to Wolf to look him over. He was much nicer to her because she'd approached him with some measure of respect, seeing as how he was obviously sentient. She offered her hand for a shake, which he actually gave.

Jackass. It had to have been because she was a girl. Apparently he had been let on the principles of chivalry at some point. If I had tried that, even then, he'd have just looked at me and said something smart, or did what he did to scare Julian. Maybe worse, since he knew I knew about the chainsaw.

Anyway, she had a point. When someone was right, they were right. Wolf was fine with the monotony for the most part, but I couldn't quite say the same. This little run-in was the most action I'd gotten all day. When there wasn't training to be done, my adrenaline fix was never quite satisfied.

By now Julian had regained his usual proud demeanor, "You do seem to be short on friends, Marcher. Maybe that's why everyone sees you spending so much time with your advisor."

"Actually, there might be something to that," I started, grinning when he clearly seemed thrown off by that admission, "I'm sitting outside by myself with an A.I. wolf. My list of living, breathing friends is kind of low."

"You sure it's not just because you're looking for some kind of edge in squad competitions?" Santo suggested with some cheek intended, "It's the only way you'll have even a snowball's chance in hell of beating the Hellions," He said, high-fiving Julian.

"Quality, not quantity, suckers," I shot back.

XxX

Honestly, computer programming wasn't the hardest thing in the world. After you got the gist of it, it was just a matter of being thorough and precise.

At least, my part wasn't that hard. I wasn't building any virtual worlds or anything. All I was doing was punching up the source code for the programs that Miss Pryde was doing the real work on.

I leaned back in my chair and cracked my knuckles. My fingers and wrists were worn from diligently typing for hours.

Miss Pryde's office wasn't very big, as she was a junior staff member, but it was well-kept. She had music going quietly to try and offset the mind-numbing monotony of the work we were doing.

"Whew!" She exclaimed, leaning back and stretching in her chair. She took off a pair of glasses she'd been wearing and rubbed her eyes, "So, are you ready to fall asleep yet?"

"Not yet," I replied, keeping my eyes on the window I was copying my info from, "Mostly because I can't. I know you know that."

"Well that explains why you've gotten grumpier since we first met."

No. Ask my family. Ask anyone who ever talks to me. I couldn't blame that on not getting any sleep. That was all me. Even my attempts at being nice were always awkward or came with some teeth. I was always sort of a surly S.O.B.

"No, it just means I like you enough to not fake it anymore," I said told her, "You're an X-Man, and my teacher. That gives you two times the authority over me, Miss Pryde. "

That, and the fact that you were cool as hell.

She raised an eyebrow from behind her glasses, "We're not in class or doing any team training right now, Bel. I told you, you can call me Kitty."

I tested the name in my mouth and shook my head in distaste. The look on my face must have been expressive, because she started laughing at me. I couldn't help it. Calling her by her name like that was weird. We _were not_ equals.

"Seriously. If you keep calling me 'Miss'… I'm telling you, it's getting old fast," Miss Pryde told me, "I have enough reminders that I've been around here way longer than the rest of you."

Fair enough. She really wasn't old enough to have someone like me address her as 'Miss' all the time. Being called 'Mister' by teenagers when I was in my early to mid-twenties would have worked my nerves too.

"I'll try. No promises," I turned her way and leaned back in my chair to look at her under the brim of my hat, "I told you, it feels… off. Just like all of this," I said, alluding to the work we were doing, "I'm never going to enjoy this."

I wasn't a numbers and processes kind of guy. Plugging in formulas and whatnot and hoping for a good finished product wasn't my style. I liked to see my results as I was making headway.

Miss Pryde waved me off, "Well, it's not really fair for you to expect to get any of this. You're still new to regular programming. It's kind of not meant for Earthlings to understand in the first place. It had to be translated to a programming language that people and computers on this plant could have a chance at understanding."

Well that was certainly a piece of news I could have used before I took a look at the original code and felt like a complete rube. No wonder the notes I'd brought with me from class for the first few evenings I'd been helping her had been useless, "So _you_ don't understand all of it?"

Miss Pryde shook her head, "I'm not some super-genius. I get by, but if you ever asked me to come up with original programming using the Shi'ar method, I'd be as lost as you. It's hard to understand for another reason. because Shi'ar technology is adaptable, the code we put in can change over time."

"As in… it evolves," I said, trying to be completely calm so as not to throw the pleasant conversation off of the tracks... even though I had just heard some more damning evidence that led more credence to my theory.

What the fuck did she think that was supposed to mean to me, it evolved. Was that supposed to be something to put me at ease? Because it definitely didn't. It was likely that she was back in lecture mode though, and didn't even consider it because I had been being good about Danger Room paranoia lately.

Okay. Perhaps I was being a bit too hasty. Maybe it wasn't _so_ bad.

"Mmm. More like upgrades. It's basically the same thing, but for computers and the like," Miss Pryde told me. I screamed inside of my own head. Loud. On the outside, I just smiled and nodded. That's the secret, kids. Just smile and nod, "It's amazing. The technology can find out what it needs to better adhere to its purpose and make the adjustments itself."

None of that would have bothered me had the damn room not tried to actively kill me. Apparently, an active intellect was needed for some reason. There was probably some logical reason for it. It would likely make for a more comprehensive program with a more flexible simulation, but still...

If anyone believed me, this would have made them think the same way. I know it.

Whatever. I was solving the problem. It was being handled. There was no need to stress. Once we finished, we could swap the damn central computer out and repeat the cycle a few years later. Hopefully, then it wouldn't be my problem.

XxX

All of the training squads were assembled on the main lawn, all decked out in their uniforms for a schoolwide meeting. All of the school's students were there, even the ones that weren't old enough to be assigned to any teams.

Everyone was excited about it. It was easy to see why. It wasn't like we had any sports teams that could compete with other schools, or even among other teams on campus. This was the closest thing to organized sports anyone was going to see at this school.

Standing with my team, I tried to take a headcount of the students involved. I stopped once I got to 45, because there were more than I could see to add to the total without fudging the numbers.

I was also eyeing all of the girls on the other teams. Whoever's idea it was to put a bunch of fine teenage girls in tight bodysuits, the thought was much appreciated.

Don't judge me. I got enough of that from my own teammate.

Hisako smacked me on the arm while I was getting a look at some of the other X-Men trainees, "Would you quit it and pay attention?" She hissed at me in a whisper, "Even Eddie's taking this more seriously than you are."

Eddie was scared out of his mind. He was taking this too seriously and throwing himself off. Fundamentally changing who you were under pressure was the easiest way to psyche yourself out.

I was trying to stay loose, which wasn't hard. This was all basically a giant field exercise. It was every student being asked, 'What did you learn?' about dealing with danger. I could deal with that. I had also arrived after the Paladins' rough patch in the last series of tests, so I wasn't triggered by the idea of competing with the others.

"I will when the assembly actually starts. No one's talking yet. In the meantime," I pointed at my blue-green eyes to mark how much light I was taking in. "I'm solar-powered, and we're standing out in the middle of the sun. I'm getting antsy. I need to occupy my mind."

Hisako rolled her eyes at what I called 'occupying my mind', "You can stop sizing up the other girls."

Well just make the day even more boring for me, why don't you? "Fair enough. I can start looking at _you_ if you want me to," What else was I supposed to do to pass the time?

And aside from that, the only reason I hadn't before was so I didn't screw up the team dynamic. Hisako and I got into it with each other routinely enough to begin with. We had a bit of a rivalry going. We always tried to outdo each other in the field, even when we were working together. I think it was because we both thought we were good and we were competitive with each other. Had that not been a thing, I would have absolutely ogled her more. The girl was pretty cute.

"You're an ass, Bel," Well, when we weren't at each other's throats, at least. That shit wasn't cute.

"What? How am I being an ass? What's the problem here?" I said, "I'm not whistling, making comments, or hitting on anybody. I'm just looking. I wish somebody was looking at _me."_

That seemed to amuse her, which, okay. Laughing at my expense was a few positive notches above any form of anger, "Really now?"

"Yes. I for one, can only hope that I look as good to some of these girls as all of them look to me."

"Good luck with that."

"I know you don't mean that, but thank you."

The two of us shut up as all of the squad instructors took the stage and stood in a line. Miss Pryde was able to see us from where she was and gave us all a supportive smile as the Headmaster Cyclops and Headmistress Frost stood ahead of them by the microphone.

"Attention, everyone," Cyclops said, getting an immediate dead silence from all of the students, "Good morning. Now, as I'm sure most of you are aware, in one week, we'll begin the second of the three scheduled Field Day events we have this year. To reiterate, the squad that has the best average score for all three Field Day events will be declared the winners."

He quickly started droning on with some speech about doing our best and using these exercises to prepare ourselves for the responsibility that some of us will face one day as X-Men. Yawn. I started whispering to my friends, "What was our score during the first Field Day?" I asked, "Actually, better question. Where did we place?"

Eddie spoke up, his eyes still cast on the stage in front of us as Cyclops continued to blather on to fill time. Just because you were a leader didn't mean you had to talk to fill time and make things feel important. All of the squad advisers up there with him even looked bored to tears, "Out of the nineteen squads, we were twelfth," He said, talking about it like a reprehensible memory.

"That's not so bad," I said. When they said we had sucked, I had been thinking that it had been some insurmountable ranking, somewhere closer to dead-last, "We can totally make a push closer to the top this time."

"When you see our scores compared to the top five squads, you won't be saying that," Hisako told me, "The Hellions, the Corsairs, the New Mutants, the Paragons, and Alpha Squadron. We didn't even get close."

"The lowest scoring team out of those five still had at so many points over us," Eddie followed up, punching into his own palm, "If we want to catch up, we'll have to be nearly perfect."

Despite the name, Field Day was split up into multiple days, with the big time team events happening on one day that the event was given the title for. The rules were based on multiple averages. We would all be scored individually in various categories, then as a team, and then during practical exercises. The average individual scores would be averaged together with the team and practical exercise scores.

Everyone would know how everyone did. Not just the kids competing. Everyone around the school. So you had to be good, because if you weren't there wasn't a person at the Institute who wouldn't be aware of it.

"Well, last time, you didn't have me," I can admit it, I was preening like a peacock as I said that. Eyes lighting up and everything, "I'm a bad loser, and I guess I need to spread that mentality around to the rest of you. Because I might not be the person that gets you to the promised land, but goddamn it, I can get you pissed off enough that we aren't getting there to make you pull us the rest of the way off of sheer rage."

Hisako and Eddie looked at each other before the former spoke up, "...I'm perfectly fine with that."

"Yeah, me too," Eddie said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "Sounds good."

I had a week to find out the rest of what made us all tick as individuals and how to mash that together for maximum effectiveness. For the most part, I knew where I stood as a person, but there were still a few blank spots with the others. If we were going to make a real splash during this Field Day, we needed every edge we could get.

In the grand scheme of things, when we were all on the same page, the Paladins had the potential to be a well-oiled machine. And the fuel that we would be driven by would be frustration, high expectations, and lots of sarcasm.

"Team meeting after the assembly?" I asked, getting nods from everyone, "Ruth, I'm going to need to ask you for a big favor."

XxX

We didn't call team meetings. Ever. If we weren't scheduled to meet up and do things, we really didn't hang out much at all. I did with Ruth and Hisako did with Eddie, but we rarely comingled aside from that.

I idly noted that the last two times we had all met up outside of official Paladin business, I had been the one to make the summons.

I wanted to think that we all just had different schedules throughout the day and whatnot, but those were just excuses. The fact was, we were not as close as we could have been or should have been. I had been with them long enough for that to be worked on, but we never did for one reason or another.

There was a distance that wasn't being shortened. I didn't expect one little powwow to fix it immediately, but any progress was to be lauded in this case. It was overdue.

"So what's up, Bel?" Eddie asked after we had found a place to sit and get comfortable. We had all changed back into our regular clothes and gathered at some of the tables outside of the cafeteria.

"I thought of something back at the assembly," I said to everyone with me, "I think we have a few blocks keeping us from being as good as we can be."

"And you have a solution?" Hisako asked. I nodded confidently, "I'm so sure."

"Feel free to be as sarcastic as you want after you hear me out!" I chirped back positively.

Eddie leaned over and tried to quietly urge her on, "Come on, Hisako. It's Bel."

"I know," She said. I put on my most pathetic face. It was as far as I was willing to go. I wasn't going to beg. Thankfully, it worked, "...Fine. Make it count. I'm all ears."

Whoo! Foot in the door! I'll take that inch and the mile behind it, thank you.

I threw an arm around Ruth's shoulders to try and comfort her. If she hadn't known what I had planned when I called for the meeting, she likely knew now. She was nervous, "I know you've read all of our minds," She shrunk into herself at what she saw as an accusation, "It's okay with me. I don't think it's on purpose, and even if it is... well, I don't really have anything to hide. But if you've done that, I need you to tell me some stuff about all of us. Myself included."

Everyone made to say something, but I held a hand up and waited for Ruth to speak first. Her hands balled up tightly at the bottom of her blouse as her head was held down, "She wants to help. Whatever Bellamy wants to know, she can tell you," She admitted quietly before shaking her head, "But... she won't say anything. Not if it gets the others angry with her."

Hisako took the opportunity to let her feelings be felt, "I don't know what you're getting at with all of this, Bel," She said, staring at me across the table, "But I definitely don't like the idea of my personal stuff getting out there to the rest of you."

I didn't think it would be easy to get them all to go along with it, but I was prepared to make concessions, "I think this will help bring us closer together, work together better. If it doesn't work, and we still stink up the joint, after Field Day, I'll let you kick me in the nuts," I said, looking her dead in the eyes.

"Deal."

No hesitation whatsoever. I didn't know how to feel about that. I mean, I got what I wanted, but she was way too willing to go along with it. In any event, it moved things along, "Eddie?"

"Do I get the same deal?" He asked, looking incredible wary at the thought of spilling his brains to the rest of us, even in a secondhand manner, "I don't want to do this for nothing."

"It won't be for nothing, but two of you aren't kicking me in the balls," I told him. Hisako looked too smug for her own good at that, "That's a one-person deal. What else can I do?"

He hesitated at first, but eventually he leaned across the table so he could whisper something to me that he didn't want anyone else to hear. What he told me was pretty surprising, but in the end, it wasn't something that was impossible. Just unlikely. I would have to put in some work to make that happen, but if things went well, I wouldn't have to do anything at all.

This was going to work.

In the end, I agreed, "I think I can do that. I'll give it my best shot if it comes down to it," He seemed mollified by that and nodded his consent. Good, "Alright. For the sake of complete transparency, let's start with me. Ruthie, when you've looked into my head, what do you see? Who am I?"

"Bellamy wants to be important. He came to the Institute because he saw it as a chance to be more than just a normal person. A chance for people to look at him and think he has worth. Bellamy wants people to like him, but doesn't know how. No. It makes him angry that he doesn't know how to approach others to make a good first impression, so he believes impressing them with what he can do will bring more people to him. He wants to be a leader. He wants people to look up to him."

I let what she said sink in before launching straight into the next question, "And what am I afraid of, more than anything else?" This was my bright idea, after all. I had better have been game for it.

"That you are not worth it. That if you get people to believe in you, you will let them all down. That if you are put into a situation where others are depending on you, you will get them hurt," She paused and swallowed before she finished, "...Like you think you let me get hurt."

I should have been better. I _would_ be better. That was what flashed through my mind as quick as a bolt of lightning. But that wasn't what was important at the moment.

"It's okay," I told her. Just a little positive reinforcement went a long way when it came to Ruth using her powers. Information was powerful, I needed her to know that, "Lastly, what do I think of everyone on the team?"

"Bellamy thinks we are the best, or that we can be," Ruth said aloud. Her demeanor brightened up considerably, "He is very proud of the Paladins. Even me," I gave her a sharp nudge, pulling a confused hum out of her, "Pardon?"

"Don't do that," I told her. That kind of crap wasn't going to help her, especially if it built up for too long. I saw it too much, and it was a thing. It needed to not be, as soon as possible, "If you can't see in yourself what I see in you, I'll just have to keep working on you until you do," I looked around at everyone else, "That's kind of how I feel about all of you. If you all have to be stuck with me, I want to make it worthwhile for you."

Everyone was quiet until I shrugged at the end of what I had to say. Everyone visibly loosened up and relaxed. I didn't think they'd take what I had to say that seriously.

"That's all I've got," I said before looking around at the others, "Anyone else want to volunteer to go next, or what?"

My eyes rested on Hisako. If she thought there was some kind of conspiracy, she didn't say so. Still, no matter how she acted, she wasn't comfortable with this.

"Fine. Do me next. I don't care," Hisako said, trying to play it cooler than she actually felt. Her body language wasn't quite appropriate for someone who didn't care, "Go for it."

With permission given, Ruth cleared her throat and started in on Hisako, "Family is very important to Hisako. She misses her own back home in Japan, very much, yes, but she wants to believe that she can find something like it in us."

I looked over at the girl in question. She seemed embarrassed at that being revealed, but didn't deny any of it.

"But-," Ruth continued before I could get too far ahead of myself, "-She does not think that we can all support each other when things get bad. Some things have given her hope, but she was not there for the event that did so, so that hope is very small."

"You want people to believe in you? I want to believe in you," Hisako said to me, "Give me a reason."

Well wasn't that nice? The scamp. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like I wanted to hug a tapir and puke rainbows.

"What are you afraid of?" I asked. That time, I didn't look at Ruth, expecting her to tell us. I looked right at Hisako. She didn't turn away. She faced me down directly, defiantly.

Sometimes it felt like Hisako resented me for some reason. I hoped we would get down to why it seemed like that.

She bit her lip, glared me down, and spoke her mind, "I'm afraid that all of this is too big. We're kids. And one day, we're going to have to go out and fight for our lives. Maybe save the world. Can we do that? What kind of training could possibly get you ready to handle something like that? I feel like we're going to get killed, and in the end, we won't make any sort of difference."

There was a graveyard on the Institute grounds. I had never been there personally. It was there for a reason. Not because people got sick and died. There weren't just one or two graves there in case something happened. They were there because something bad happening and lives being claimed on our side was an inevitability.

I thought of Miss Pryde, and when I'd inadvertently brought up other X-Men who... weren't with us anymore. More than likely, at least one of the two people she had told me about were dead. That made me feel like an asshole, and gave more credence to what Hisako was saying.

How many times had the X-Men come up short when it had really counted, and how many people, humans and mutants, suffered as a result? How many of their own had suffered?

We could have been sitting there all day trying to break that down without someone telling us.

"What does Hisako think of the team?" I asked, trying to move things forward.

"Eddie is her favorite," Ruth said, getting a 'hell yeah, I am' out of the person in question, "He was the first other member of the team. Before Bellamy showed up, he was the only person she felt like she could talk to. Because of this, Hisako still doesn't trust Bellamy yet."

I had figured I would get a few surprises, but hearing that Hisako didn't trust me never figured into those ideas, "What? Really?" I couldn't think of what I'd done to make that happen.

Hisako Ichiki had no problems sharing.

"I think you're a loudmouth," She said bluntly. Her eyes were locked on mine as though she were daring me to dispute any of it. No doubt, there were plenty of examples, "You're good. You're _really_ good. But even with some of the dumb, cocksure stuff that comes out of your mouth, I think it's just talk. I think you don't even know how good you are," Well, at least there was some positive in this, "If you waited and listened sometimes instead of thinking that you have all of the answers somewhere inside that head of yours, I think we would get along better. But you always think you're right, and when you are, you're a complete ass about it."

I didn't expect anyone to come forward with what they were thinking willingly, or that extensively. And yet here we sat, and I don't think Hisako pulled any punches. The fact that Ruth wasn't saying anything else led me to believe that she was about to say something similar, likely in a much nicer way, even if it would have been just as direct.

For once, I didn't immediately have a response to something that she said. That was new.

...Maybe she had a point if that was my first thought?

"I...huh..." I fumbled around for a few moments before I decided not to go for something snappy.

There was a time and a place for everything. This wasn't it. We all needed something honest and straightforward.

Measured, well-thought out words were what would keep the ship upright, "...Okay. I can see that. If you think I run my mouth all of the time, it's kind of a matter of, well, you guys," Hisako raised an eyebrow skeptically, "I've never been in a position where I was responsible for anyone else before. I've never been on any teams. Never played sports. I don't know how to calm people down or make them believe things are okay in any other way than to convince _myself_ that everything is under control, out loud."

Eddie's jaw was slacked open for a few seconds before he said what was on his mind, "Bro, that 'you're not crazy' thing that you were trying to convince Miss Frost about? I'm thinking there might actually be something to that."

I could deal with being called crazy, as long as it didn't affect whether people thought I was telling the truth.

"Maybe," I partially admitted, "But my mindset is, who in the hell is going to believe in you if you don't even believe in yourself?" I told them before turning directly to Hisako, "I won't change everything. I don't even think I can. But I can work on some of it. The bad parts of it. Just... instead of fighting with me on things, could you call me out on it more? That'd probably help."

"Oh I will. You don't even need to worry about that," Hisako said. Fair enough. If I had to get a telepath poking around in her head to get that out of her in the first place, I'd better damn well believe she was going to be reminding me of it whenever it came up.

I reached forward across the table with my hand extended. She regarded it for a moment before grabbing onto it and giving it a shake. The implication went unsaid, but it didn't need to be talked about. She was telling me to be better, I was telling her to hold me accountable.

That left Eddie up next. He didn't seem excited at all. Watching Hisako and I go did nothing to make him feel any better about it. We knew he would eventually, though. There was no rush. We had all day. He drummed his fingers on the table irritably before shooting his eyes over to Ruth who looked uncomfortable at the attention.

Whatever she was about to say, no matter how much he didn't like it, he had better not blame her. Blame me. I told her to do this, "Alright... go ahead."

Good man.

My blind friend took a deep breath and launched into our resident high-flyer's psychological breakdown, "Eddie wants to be an X-Man more than anything. He believes he can be the best there ever was. When he flies, he feels invincible."

"None of you would understand, man," Eddie said, leaning back in his chair, more relaxed than he'd been since we'd met up that morning for the assembly, "That control in the air. I swear, the first time I ever took off, it felt more natural than walking. I picked it up so fast. The only reason I don't fly everywhere is because the rest of you can't. It's freedom that I can't even explain. It's... the best. It's everything to me."

I understood. My powers made me feel strong, like I could handle anything, just so long as I had enough juice to make some sort of move. It wasn't hard to think that others felt something similar to that about their own. It wasn't the end-all though. Not for me.

But this was what I wanted. I wanted everyone to talk about what they were thinking and feeling without keeping hush-hush about it until it was forced out. The easier we found it to go to each other about these kinds of things, the better everything would be when we worked together. More trust. Better fields of communication. More of a desire to make things work for the people next to you. At least, that was my idea.

The first step was opening ourselves up, making ourselves vulnerable, and showing that we wouldn't drive a stake into each other at the first show of weakness or undesirable traits.

I gave Ruth a little pat on the back of her hand to let her know it was okay to keep going, following the same train of questioning that we had been using so far, "Eddie is afraid of losing his powers. The thought of having them taken away, of not being able to be here and do what he does with us anymore frightens him more than anything. Yes," She deliberately explained.

"What does he think of us?" I asked.

"I can answer that for myself," Eddie volunteered, raising his hand before speaking to all of us, "Hisako, you're my best friend. Period. But you knew that already," The Japanese girl grinned and nodded, getting a matching grin out of Eddie as well before he turned to me, "I like Bellamy too. You're a little intense and fuck if I know how the wiring in your head works. Sometimes I think you've got brain stew sloshing around up there."

I couldn't dispute that. Nor did I necessarily want to. I didn't see that as a bad thing, "Eh. It's worked so far," I said with a shrug.

"Right. It works. As a team, we get along, and we have fun, right?" It was then that the good vibes disappeared. He sighed deeply and looked over at our little telepath, Ruth. I could tell right then, this wouldn't be great, "And for you. I know you're nice. I think you're weird though. And you seeing the future scares the crap out of me, because you never see anything good. Like, 'oh, Eddie's going to find $10,000 tomorrow,' or, 'Bel's going to get laid in six months.' Never anything like that. It's always fire and brimstone."

Things were getting a little too heavy, even for what I wanted, "I take offense to the 'six months' thing," I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. That was usually Eddie's job though. I wasn't as good at it, "I'm pretty sure I could make it happen sooner than that if I wanted to. Maybe."

Hisako sent me a grateful look for trying. I wasn't sure how well it actually worked, though, because it didn't change the content of what Eddie was saying.

Credit to him, he didn't shy away from what he was saying, or try to sugarcoat it. This really wasn't the time or the place for that, "I feel like if I hang out around you for long enough, you'll see something that'll happen to me. Something really bad. And I don't want to know. That's why I stay away from you."

Because Ruthie's premonitions always came true. Always. She saw a clear enough picture for the most part to get what was going on, but she never saw enough to let anyone know how to stop it. I still had yet to find a way to make that work for her.

And speaking of whom, it was her turn.

"Alright, that's everyone except for one," I said. Ruth moved away from me and shifted around in her seat. Come on. I needed her to talk to us, "We needed you to do the honors last because you were the one who had to read the rest of us. So I'll just say, we won't really be able to tell if you're not telling the truth. This is going to take a little trust from us, here."

Hearing everyone else go first was supposed to soften her up enough to make it easier for her. None of us had any way of verifying if what she was saying was the truth, so I hoped all of us getting our business put out there would show her that everything would be fine.

Ruthie was braver than I gave her credit for. It didn't take much coaxing at all for her to start in on herself.

"Pardon, she has no reason to lie to you," Our blind, oftentimes confusing teammate said, "She... has never felt useful. Not now. Not before she came to the Institute either, no. She does not take pride in her powers the way the rest of you do, because they never help."

She wasn't dumb, and she wasn't deaf. She had ears. As did I. People didn't just avoid Ruth because they were afraid they would be the subjects of one of her visions, some of them were of the mindset that being around her would cause the awful things she foresaw to happen to them, as though she were bad luck.

If she had eyes, I knew that they would be watering. I could hear it in her voice, "Yes, she is afraid that no one likes her. That her only friends spend time with her just because they have to. Sorry," Her head was down to hide the fact that her lip was quivering. I felt terrible, "She feels like she is letting everyone down during missions and making them hate her even more."

Hisako was over beside her before I could even say anything, "We don't hate you," She said, gathering Ruth up into a hug, "Why would you say that? I know you didn't read that off of anyone here."

Eddie rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably. Girls crying, even if you couldn't necessarily see tears from Ruth, always made it awkward for guys who didn't know how to respond. I was right there with him, "No. I mean, yeah, I think you're weird and you freak me out a lot, but I don't hate you. Are you kidding?"

My reaction was a bit more reserved.

I stayed where I was, sat off to the side, pulling my hat down over my head, "If you need me to tell you that I like you at this point, I need more work on my people skills than I thought I did." I told her.

Honestly, it irritated me that _I_ had to say it more than anything else. We had to find a way to fix all of that negative shit she had going on. That was another story for another time though.

…Good lord, was it ever.

That aside, this was what I wanted for the most part. I wanted everyone to see that we didn't have any plots and schemes. We didn't want anything at the expense of someone else.

I clapped my hands together to get everyone's attention, "I want us to be as awesome as I know we are," I said, "It doesn't matter that there are just four of us. I don't think we can be the best, I _know_ we can be. Do you?"

I looked at Eddie as I said that. He seemed offended at the thought that he would accept being a loser, "Of course."

He wanted it, probably more than I did.

"This is going to be a lot of work," I said, getting up and starting to walk around the table, "We're all different. _Really_ different, if you haven't realized that until now. But there isn't any reason we can't make this work. I want to," Stopping behind Ruth, I set my hands on her shoulders, "I like who we have and what we have going for us. Do you?"

Hisako looked over at me from where she was now sitting next to Ruth, "I never had any problems with anyone else, and I just told you that I thought you were good. Does that answer the question?"

"It does," I gave her what I hoped was a smile that showed how comfortable I was with everyone, "Now… who's up for embarrassing all of the other teams? Do we all get gaudy-ass trophies for winning?"

"Oh yeah," Hisako confirmed with a laugh.

"No one else gets any bullshit 'you did your best' participation trophies?" I asked as a follow-up question.

"Nope," Eddie said, popping the 'p' sound, "Plus, the winners are plastered all over the yearbook at the end of the school year."

The smile on my face pulled at my lips so hard, I'm sure it looked like some kind of expression of diabolical glee, "Well if I wasn't sold on this whole thing before, I definitely am now," The only thing better than winning was when it lingered, and other people couldn't get away from the fact that you had won, "Alright, now that we're all on the same page, we need to come up with some cool team shit to show we're cohesive."

If Hisako had been onboard before, she had fallen off of the wagon right there, "What, winning isn't enough?" Clearly, someone was too cool for squad bonding.

I scoffed as though it were obvious. Eddie backed me up by rolling his eyes and answering for me, "Of course not. They need to realize that we're an unstoppable force. We need a catchphrase like 'Paladin up', or something that's not lame. Ooh! Bel! Some kind of long, elaborate team handshake. What do you got?"

I stared at Eddie flatly for a few seconds before responding, "Alright, I'm going to assume that you wanted me to come up with a handshake because this was my idea, and not because I'm black."

That notion was quickly shot down by the air-capable redhead, "No, it's definitely because you're black," He said, completely casually.

Well, at least he was honest about it, "…I'm not even offended, because I do have ideas," I said, jumping over to him to start practicing, "Here. It's front-back-front-front-rotate-slide-."

He held his hands up to stop me before I had even gotten into it, "Wait-wait-wait, slow down. It's front-back what?"

"I'm showing you. Watch what I'm doing. All of that stuff was just the start of it." "Like I said, it's front-back-front-front-rotate-slide…"

I was pumped. I was psyched up and ready to go. Dare I say, I was excited to be a part of Field Day.

Team chemistry was a work in progress that I felt was coming along. We had all sat down and had a much needed talk, of which I figured this would not be the last.

I was getting my ducks in a row in every way that I could see.

So why the hell did I have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was brushing off something important?

* * *

 **Surprise, motherfuckers! Didn't expect two updates, did you? Neither did I, honestly.**

 **We're moving along with this arc. I hope you enjoyed. I'll have more for you all soon enough.**

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 **There, Casey. I pimped it again. You're welcome.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	7. School Spirit - Part I

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. If I had a dime for every time I said that, I would have… seven dimes, as of now at least. That's kind of sad, actually. Seventy cents can't get you anything anymore.

Damn inflation!

 **Chapter 7: School Spirit – Part I**

* * *

I always had my own theory about the goal of the Xavier Institute's whole 'mutant equality' thing.

Going for the big prize of everybody loving everybody and everything being cool all over the world was nice. Unless someone hopped on Cerebro and gave the world a psychic lobotomy, it was unrealistic that it would happen in my lifetime, given that people of different races and religions were still messing with each other even now, but it was still a nice thought.

No, while you were aiming for that, you also had to put in the work to do it a different way to cover all of your bases. The hard way. The slow, creeping, step-by-step way, by ingratiating yourself into different aspects of society over time. Dazzler started to do it with entertainment, and since mutants were public now, we could too. It wouldn't even have been that hard.

My thought was: if the Xavier Institute had ever thought to just televise Field Day, it would have done a lot to warm people up to mutants.

Stay with me for this one.

First of all, instead of just keeping us stuck on mansion property in Salem Center, usually behind gates and security, it would have let people see that we were all just kids trying to do our best.

Look at college athletics and high school sports in small towns. People latched on to talented student-athletes and tried to live vicariously through them. Well, what about students that would eventually save your sorry ass from whatever megalomaniacal freak decided to take a chunk out of your neighborhood? I bet people would care then.

Second of all, people could get to know us a bit before forming at least a partially decent opinion case-by-case. I for one didn't have a problem with anyone seeing me and deciding that I was an asshole after the fact. There were plenty of good reasons to dislike me. One of them was not because my body processes ran off light energy. Screw that.

Third, and probably most important to the whole thing working, it was entertaining! It was televised competition with different colored uniforms, flowery names, team dynamics, a few mascots (like Lockheed), and all of that other 'rah-rah', 'go team' horseshit! People would have lost their minds for it!

At its core, Field Day was a bunch of kids running around doing superhero shit. What's not to love about that? Put some well-spoken, knowledgeable gentleman on with some other charismatic S.O.B. on commentary, and the masses would have eaten it up!

Treat it like a real sporting event, like the Olympics, or those crossfit competitions they air on ESPN sometimes. If people would watch the World Series of Poker for two hours every night for a week or tune in for play-by-play of the July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, they would sit down to watch a 16 year old kid deadlift ten tons or dodge some lasers on a crazy nightmare obstacle course.

Once it caught on, broadcasting rights would have eventually made the school a _disgusting_ amount of capital. No more relying on wealthy benefactors and alumni, or however the hell we were funded, to keep the whole machine running smoothly.

Hey, if colleges could make money and gain notoriety off the backs of their athletes, the Institute could do it off of us. Yes, indeed. It was the first step to equality and understanding for a place of education for mutants – running your young studs into the ground for profit in exchange for room and board.

There was originally a point to all of this, I swear. I just need to remember what it was.

Oh yeah! Field Day!

Competitions had started, and whenever you weren't in an event or getting ready for one, you were sitting by a monitor, watching the action as it went on. All of the events would be happening on different parts of the Institute so everyone could watch, and there were security cameras all over the property, so it wasn't difficult to re-purpose them for catching everything that was happening. We even had a drone cam, which was useful for keeping track of everyone doing the speed and control event.

Ah, the speed event. The only one that we all thought we had a good chance at winning.

I personally thought that if we picked the right people for the right things, we had a good chance to do well in everything. Sadly, the beatdown my team had taken during the last Field Day had not endeared them much toward my mindset.

Be that as it may, Eddie went out determined to get us off on the right foot in the first competition of the day.

Eddie flew around a massive course that had been laid out on the Xavier Institute grounds. There were bright glowing holographic arches that he had to go through one after another until he was done. All of the checkpoints were close to the ground, for those students participating that weren't capable of flight.

It started with twenty-five visible checkpoints. For every checkpoint you hit, it would disappear and at the end of them, a new one would keep popping up until you got to seventy-five. That way, twenty-five checkpoints could always been seen on the field until you got close to finishing up at the number one-hundred.

If you missed one or skipped one because you were cheating or weren't keeping track of where you were going, but continued on to the end, just focusing on pure speed, you were heavily penalized. Eventually you were disqualified if you kept doing it. Hence the 'control' portion of the speed and control competition.

From what I could see on camera, our boy was killing it out there. He hadn't missed any, and his speed was absolutely absurd. Four people had gone before him, and looking at his checkpoint count to his time, he was doing better than anyone I'd seen up to that point.

"Come on Eddie," I could hear Hisako mutter under her breath. Her fists were squeezed tight. She wanted him to do well, probably more than even Ruth and I did.

As he flew through the last checkpoint and his time was stopped, his score was tallied right there on the spot, taking all of the factors of the event into account.

 **Speed & Control Competition: Wing – 9.2**

"Hell yeah!" I jumped up and clapped in satisfaction, getting a few looks from the other kids not on the Paladins. Screw them. That was an outstanding score, "Yes, sir! More of that, please!" Hisako was ready to respond to the high-five that I so desperately wanted at that moment.

It took a little while for us to settle down from how jazzed we were. What a way to start our fortunes off on a good note. Man, we really needed a team celebration or something.

Hisako was very happy about our teammate's performance, "Last year, he missed three checkpoints last year and got disqualified right in the middle of his run," She told me, frowning a bit at remembering "It absolutely killed him."

Another minute or two passed before Eddie made it back to where our team had agreed to meet up in between competitions. As he approached, I saw a medal around his neck with a large 'X' on it, presumably from winning the speed competition.

...I wanted one.

I went up to congratulate him on doing well, but when I got close enough, he didn't look pleased.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, first and foremost, before looking at us with an air of disappointment on his face, "My bad, guys. I couldn't get a ten."

What kind of perfectionist was he to think that getting a score higher than a 9 wasn't something to puff one's chest out at? He won!

"No, that was a great score, man!" I assured him, "Unless you can teleport or something, nobody's getting a 10."

And I believed that. Flying was what Eddie _did_. There were plenty of other students that could do it, but it wasn't the main focus of really anyone who was actually in the competition. It seemed the most natural and effortless for him than for anyone else I'd seen so far. Plus, he told me that the fastest he had ever gone was past the speed of sound. If that was the case, he was absolutely the right pick for us. I had no idea how fast he was going, but it got the job done.

The way Field Day worked this time around was based on multiple factors. Teams would choose one representative for solo events. The scores were then averaged together and would be averaged again later with the scores we got from the team challenges and then practical exercise, which was basically the big main event.

...That was more math than I felt like handling without a calculator in my hand. The scoring system was a mixed bag for the Paladins.

Full teams could only use a representative once in the six solo events offered. You couldn't have a single ringer do them all. You needed at least three people on a squad to so much as take part. Teams of four could have one person go twice. Teams of three could have two people go twice.

To make things fairer for full teams of six, all squads could dump their lowest individual score to make their averages better.

We had to pick and choose which events we thought we would kick the most ass at, because for us, every score was important.

Eddie had been signed up for the speed event. It was a no-brainer, as he was our fastest guy. He could hit the speed of sound if he pushed himself hard enough. None of us were messing with that.

We thought about putting Hisako in the strength competition, but while she was the strongest out of our team, there were plenty of students way stronger, a painful lesson she learned the last go-around. So we decided to ignore that event altogether, take the big, fat 0, and drop it.

Instead, we stuck her in the durability challenge. Her name was Armor, so why not?

For that event, the competitors were placed into a chamber where the general settings would be constantly readjusted for five minutes. Every thirty seconds, you got a point. If you lasted the full five minutes, you got a perfect score. Sounds easy, right?

Not so much. In addition to the gravity, the air pressure, the temperature, pretty much anything you can think of would be physically changed. And as time went on, it got progressively worse. If you gave up or dropped, it was over. If you gave the instructors any reason to turn it off, it was over. It was the most dangerous solo event in the entire line-up. When people chose events to pick members for, that was usually the one they avoided all together. They took the score of zero, and then made up for it with less sadistic competitions.

 **Durability & Willpower Competition: Armor – 7.0**

Eddie had gone with her, which had been a good idea, because walking on her own was quite the feat afterwards. Thankfully, team stuff didn't start until the next day, so she had that much time to recover. She probably only needed an hour or so to get back into form, though.

By the time she got back to us, Hisako was more upset about her score than anything else, "A seven..."

"It's not the end of the world," Eddie tried to say, "That's a rough event to try and compete in. Maybe we should have gone for something else?"

"No, that one was the best my powers would have been good for," Hisako said, bemoaning her score. In all fairness, matching up to Eddie's 9-plus would have been hard in any event, "...Bling! from the Chevaliers and the Mercury girl from the Hellions got 10s."

"Well, as far as we know, they're straight-up diamond and metal," I said before reaching out and grabbing her bicep, "You might have that armor, but it doesn't last forever and you're just squishy teenage girl underneath," Hisako pulled her arm away and glared at me, but didn't dispute anything, "Fates be willing, you'll never have to be under enough pressure to smush coal into diamonds for five minutes straight, and no, Ruthie, I do not want to know if that ever really _is_ going to happen," I finished quickly, preempting Ruth before she could interject with something from the future.

She just shrugged at me. I had no idea if that meant she had something in mind or not, but for the sake of spoilers that we apparently couldn't change anyway, I didn't want to know one way or the other.

There wasn't really any time to consider it either, as I had to get to the next competition area within the span of a few minutes. It was my turn.

Choosing events that we could do well at was hard. Last time around, part of the problem was that my teammates hadn't done it exactly right. The appropriate people weren't in the proper competitions, so their scores weren't as good as they could have been. Even if their team and practical exercise scores had been great, which they hadn't been, what they'd gotten from the solo events would have still sank them anyway.

Even though I'd felt like we'd chosen well this time around, our boon wasn't going to come from the solo events. That wasn't how we were going to win. Our goal was to stay competitive through the solo events, and then make our push during the two other phases of Field Day.

That didn't mean I wasn't expecting to win, though.

When I showed up at the entrance courtyard that was being used as the contest site, I saw a woman wearing a more traditional black and yellow color scheme version of the X-Men uniform. She was a Native American with long black hair plaited into two braids. From the team intros, I remembered this was the advisor for the New Mutants squad, Dani Moonstar.

She noticed me coming, "Solaris?" I nodded in confirmation of my identity, even if I still hated that codename, "Alright. I'm the proctor for this test."

"Did your team go yet?" I asked, trying to make some kind of conversation. Talking helped me calm down. I didn't think I had any nerves, but if I did, speaking with someone would make me forget about them, "I meant to be here earlier to watch, but I was too busy making sure Hisako was okay after the durability competition."

"Yes. I think you and the last competitor will have your work cut out for you to beat Wind Dancer's score," Dani replied with a good-natured smile on her face.

"Sofia?" I asked, remembering the girl that I talked to sometimes in Mr. Logan's hand-to-hand combat classes. I hadn't fought her yet, but she seemed like she knew her stuff, "Well shit. What did she-? Wait, don't tell me what she got. It doesn't matter. All that matters is what _I'm_ about to get."

From the proud way Dani had mentioned Sofia and her score, she must have been the leader so far, or at least close to the lead. The belligerent little bastard in me that drove my every attempt at trying to achieve anything now wanted to get the top score, not just for my team, but so I could see the look on Dani's face after I outdid her student.

...Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

Dani seemed accepting of my challenging nature. Why wouldn't she be? That was the point of this whole thing, to do your best, "You know the rules, right?" She asked, guiding me into the starting area, "You have one minute to hit as many targets as you can. Some are worth more points than others. You can move however you want, wherever you want, to get the job done. The number of points you get will determine your score."

"Got it," I said, cracking my knuckles and kicking my legs to loosen them up. There was nothing like a little target practice, "What if I run out?"

"You get a perfect score," Dani told me, getting a hum of understanding from me, "Okay, are you ready?" She asked. I nodded instead of speaking, my game face thoroughly on by this point, "Alright. I'll start the countdown once I get clear. When you hear the buzzer, do whatever you can to hit every target you see."

I stood and waited, focusing on my breathing and the feeling of the mystical, magical sun beaming down on me.

"Begin in Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five ! Four! Three! Two! One! Go!"

Dozens of drones descended on the area and my hands started flying. Nothing but closed fist blasts, because open-hand stuff would have made explosions, which meant smoke that would have made it harder for me to see.

Some of them remained still, but most of them had some kind of movement to them, and with so many of them flying around, it was easy to lose track of what you were trying to hit. It was like a hive of gigantic, angry, metal hornets, even down to the distracting droning hovering sound that they made to stay in flight.

I had to keep my eyes and ears open, because at best they didn't pay any mind to where I was. At worst, sometimes they would go straight for me. I didn't know if someone was controlling them, or if they flew independently, but getting hit by one of those would have definitely left a mark. Probably would have lowered my score too.

In the end, I found the sweet-spot of a quick enough rate of fire paired with accuracy that let me hit what I was shooting at with each forward thrust of each hand. If I had enough time to line up my shot, I felt like I could hit anything, no matter how far away it was. Light blasts didn't have mass, so they didn't lose momentum. They would just lose their beam form if I fired a shot far enough away and didn't maintain it, but they flew so fast that it hardly ever mattered unless I was sniping.

An errant drone flew too close and nearly clipped me, but I adjusted for it and knocked it aside with a punch. The part on the front that lit up as it fell to the ground told me that it had counted toward my score, but it messed up my flow. I spent the rest of the test trying to get back into rhythm, but I only had a few seconds left. It ended before I could hit my stride again.

As a buzzer sounded and all of the drones flew off to where they had come from, even the ones I had shot, I tried to mentally calculate how many I had hit.

"That's the end of the test, Solaris!" Dani Moonstar shouted at me from where she had been keeping time from, "Come out of the exercise area!"

I was eager to see how I'd done, so I jogged over and got a look at the tablet she was using to keep tabs on all of the scores. She noticed I was trying to check and gave me some help by turning my way once she had seen what she'd needed to from it.

 **Accuracy & Efficiency Competition: Solaris – 8.3**

I saw that as things stood, I was at the top of the leaderboard for that event. Sofia, Wind Dancer from the New Mutants, had scored a flat 8. The only other person that had gotten close was some student codenamed 'Network' who had gotten a 7.6.

I stepped back and held up my fists, both glowing with light energy building up just beneath the skin, and blew on both before tucking them away in make-believe holsters. It was goofy, and Dani let me know about it when she shook her head at the action.

It wasn't a 10 or a 9, but I was more than happy to take it. The score was high enough to get me in the lead with one more person to go.

And I passed by that person on the way out of the courtyard. When I saw the red of Julian Keller's Hellion's squad uniform, I could feel my lead vanish just like that.

"Fuck," I blurted out. It was too late to take it back though. He could already smell my anxiety.

"Marcher," Julian said, more easygoing than I would have preferred. He walked like his winning was money in the bank already. Seeing as how sabotage was more than likely frowned upon, he had a point, "I entered this thing to show Sofia what I could do, but smacking you down is a bonus I can get behind. You want to stick around and watch me win this thing?"

"Nope!" I said, not even bothering to look back as I walked past him off of the course. I couldn't get far enough away before I heard the start of his session though, and curiosity, rotten bastard that it was, won out in my mind.

From that point on, all I could do was sit back and listen as my score was left in the dust. With every flick of his hands, it seemed like Julian was dropping four or five drones, smashing them into each other, or sending them flying. Anything that hovered into his field of vision was caught in a green field. It wasn't even the objects themselves, it was the area around them.

When time started to dwindle, he seemed to get tired of the manual process and let his power explode all around him. Anything that was left in the air around him dropped to the ground and deactivated.

After the last drone was downed, the time stopped with five seconds left on the clock.

 **Accuracy & Efficiency Competition: Hellion – 10**

If there was a word better than bitter to describe the taste in my mouth at that moment, anyone could have felt free to use it.

The guy would have been so much easier to deal with if he either weren't such an asshole, or he wasn't so good. Unfortunately, he was both, with a power that lent itself to him being badass. It was my fault for not being up to snuff to force my own perfect score.

My best wasn't good enough. In a situation like this, all I could do was suck it up and take my loss like a man. But God, I really didn't want to.

"Man, that was too easy," Julian said as he walked off of the competition field, "You like that, Marcher?"

I was perfectly honest with him, "I _don't_ like that. I don't like that at all," I said, "If you're in this, who did the speed competition?" Because the Hellions weren't in the top five scores for that one, but I'd never seen who'd gone for them. I'd felt like we could have taken them for a moment if Julian had done that one and hadn't even placed.

"Sooraya. But that's the score we're probably going to drop," He said with a shrug, the expression on his face changing to one of thought, "Either that or Brian's score in the telepathy thing... or whatever Kevin gets on the flying test. Whichever's lowest."

And here I was hoping he'd be some kind of egomaniac and put his squad members in competitions without thinking of who would score the highest in what. Quite the contrary, clearly. This gave them at least two scores of perfect 10. Thankfully, there wasn't much time for him to lord the win over me. We both had to get back to our teams for the rest of the competitions.

Eddie had been waiting on me, not far from the front of the main school building, in plain sight of the competition field in the courtyard. There was an understanding look of pity on his face. That made the loss hurt that much more. But, stiff upper-lip. Nothing was over. There was still plenty of work to do. Eddie respected that much and didn't bother saying anything. He just opened the door for me and fell in step as we started searching for Hisako and Ruth.

Ruth was our only telepath, so she was obviously the one who was set to compete in the telepathy competition. I was afraid for her, but if I babied her and kept her from competing, it would have done us all a disservice. She was training to be one of the X-Men just like the rest of us, and if I gave her an out just because it might have been unpleasant for her, it would have been the same as looking down on her.

Also, we needed all hands on deck. Everyone had to put their best foot forward. We all wanted to win, or at least prove that just because there were only four of us, that didn't mean we weren't just as good as any other team.

Hisako and Ruth sat on a bench outside of one of the auditorium classrooms where the telepathy competition had been scheduled to take place. Ruth was holding her head and leaning against Hisako.

Had she gone already?

Hisako noticed me first, "How did it go?" She asked at first, apparently not noticing the scowl on my face until I got closer. It must have been quite bad for her to not even need any verbal confirmation from me, "Oof. That bad, huh?"

I sighed and sat down on the other side of Ruth. When I did, Ruth switched from Hisako's shoulder over to mine. I didn't mind it any, "It's not that it was bad, it's that I never had a chance at winning. Not with who else was in it."

Eddie chimed in, willing to explain my circumstances in more detail in my stead, "Hellion was the last guy to go, right after Bel,"

Hisako winced. Was that a show of sympathy? That was new, "That sucks."

'Sucks' was an understatement. It sucked spilling your drink all over your hand because the top wasn't secured tightly enough. Losing like that was a heartbreaker. Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

"He doesn't even have to aim. All he has to do is barely focus on the general area around his targets," I said, "I'm gonna make a suggestion for the next time. If it's an accuracy contest, it should have stuff that we _shouldn't_ hit," I stopped when I realized that complaining over my circumstances wasn't exactly going to do anyone on my team any favors. You can't be top dog if you act like a pussy, "Sorry. I'll let it go. An 8.3 is good enough for what we were looking for, I guess."

It wasn't bad, if we were judging on the scale of 'good enough'. It just wasn't enough to win.

Hisako's expression changed to a sly one, "Well, while you were away, something happened that might cheer you up," She pulled up the student website on her phone with the listing of current Field Day scores on it, "Check that out."

 **Telepathy: Blindfold – 9.5**

It was a good thing she didn't let me hold the phone, because I would have dropped it. I looked at Ruth, who was still leaning against my shoulder, a quiet, satisfied smile on her face, "Ruthie you got a-... that's a really good-... y-you almost beat the Cuckoos!" I pointed out, noticing that the blonde triplets on Mr. Summers' Corsairs squad had only edged her out by .3 points, "How the hell did you do that?"

Almost on cue, Miss Frost walked out of the auditorium classroom, giving the lot of us a side gaze as she stopped by us, "Most of her score came because I literally _cannot_ read her mind," She said, sounding the slightest bit annoyed. Is it wrong that I enjoyed that? "With my girls, I can at least get something, but... with Miss Aldine, her mind is in too much flux for me to read."

"I'm not really surprised," Eddie said from off to the side, getting everyone to look at him momentarily, "What? You're telling me any of you are?"

None of us could say that we were.

"Huh," I muttered, looking over at Ruth. I wasn't surprised. Who could have figured that would have wound up being an advantage? I would take it, though, "That's a hell of a wrinkle."

Miss Frost's nose crinkled up slightly at the thought of being mentally rebuffed by a student, "Indeed. Even if it was because of a factor out of her control, I had to score her accordingly," She said, before changing her tune somewhat, "But, that doesn't mean she's immune to telepathic assaults. That is where you lost points, dear. Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe are superior mental combatants. When they are together, they're nearly impossible to defeat. You were barely able to defend yourself."

But she had lasted long enough to outscore almost the entire rest of the field. Right now, that was what mattered. Anything else was a work in progress. We would deal with it in due time.

I was going to say something, but Ruth of all people actually beat me to it, "She knows, yes. Others are counting on her. She wants to do well," She said, slowly sitting up straighter and more confident, "Yes, this is just a start."

Miss Frost regarded Ruth closely before looking over at me and nodding. Apparently she accepted that and left us to our own devices.

Good. I was not in the mood to get punished for arguing with a teacher, because that was what it felt like was going to happen. I was not in the mood for any lectures, especially on something that we already knew we had to take care of.

It would be handled in due time.

XxX

My second challenge of the day was the flying test.

A lot of squads chose this test to skip out on, because very few kids had taken the aviation courses offered. Not me. I saw aviation on the list of classes offered and wondered why anyone wouldn't want to learn how to fly a plane. It counted as a regular class. That was just more time I didn't have to spend doing math.

The best part: it had been a class of about five. None of whom were competing at the moment. Most of the people onboard the Blackbird with me when it took off were there trying to make up a low score from another part of Field Day.

Once again, I liked my chances of doing well.

I looked around at all of the others. I didn't know for sure, but they all looked nervous. I was calmer about flying than I had been during the accuracy challenge.

Sitting in one of the seats across the way from me, the pink-haired girl from the Paragons, Megan. Since she was one of the only ones I knew, and just sitting there in silence was boring, I spoke up, "Hey, what are you worried about?" I asked. It was all over her face.

"I thought this was _literal_ flying," Megan said, letting her wings wiggle from how they were neatly pressed against her seat, "Like, with wings, or whatever else anyone has."

"Oh," I said, before looking around. When I made eye contact with three other students, I realized how many others probably figured thought something similar before getting up there, "Oh!"

Now that made a lot more sense. At least two of the seven kids there could fly on their own. They were probably feeling good until they realized that they hadn't been taken up to jump out of the plane and fly with their powers, but to actually fly the plane itself.

…Perhaps they should have named it the pilot test instead. Much less misleading. Oh well. Hindsight was 20/20.

I tried to think of anything to say to her, but in the end, all I came up with was, "That sucks..."

Not for me. For all of them, because there was only one aviation class, and I know full well I never saw any of them in there.

It was literally all I could say in return. I didn't have anything encouraging to say, because I wanted to win, and I didn't want to inspire anyone into idiot savanting their way into a top score. However, rubbing it in was a bit dickish, and I was trying to be a better person.

Megan nodded in agreement with me and seemed to cringe at every dip and roll she thought she felt the plane take.

"Solaris," A man said in a German accent. I unconsciously grit my teeth every time I heard that codename. I really didn't like it, "It's your turn. Come up front to the cockpit and take the controls."

I unbuckled my seat and got up from the back where I and the rest of the other students competing had been sitting. We had been placed back there so we couldn't get a look at how anyone else was flying. Of course, that was kind of redundant for one of us.

David Alleyne, a.k.a. Prodigy. An appropriate name, because the fucker knew any learned skill you knew for as long as he was close enough to you. God, what a power. If I had that, I wouldn't even have gone to this school. I would have cheated my way through classes and gotten a cushy job around tons of smart people I could rip ideas off from.

Which just showed how much better a person he was than me.

To be fair, David wasn't a fucker. He was a nice guy, he was honestly intelligent in his own right, and it wasn't like he was actively trying to get all of your hard-earned talents and knowledge. Hell, he didn't even keep them! But seriously, just by sitting in the damn plane, he could probably fly it at least as well as the best pilot there, which probably wasn't me.

Speaking of whom, I passed by him as he moved back to the sitting area and I headed to the front, "Good luck," He said on his way past.

"Thanks," I said. I didn't bother asking what he'd scored. It was either perfect, or as close as any of us were going to get to it, "Here's hoping something nuts happens so I can impress Nightcrawler and win this thing."

I eventually got to the front of the plane, my eyes getting a good look at us cutting our way through the sky before taking note of who was flying. A man with blue hair and fur, but not like Dr. McCoy's. He had pointed ears, solid-colored eyes and a long, thin, flexible tail. He wore a black bodysuit with red accents and white three-fingered gloves with white three-toed boots.

Kurt Wagner. Resident teleporter, drama teacher, devout Catholic, and all-around friendly guy. He was also the proctor for the practical flight test.

I took my seat in the chair next to him and strapped myself in. They definitely would have taken points off if I'd needed to be to. Mr. Wagner waited until I looked situated and ready to go, "Are you ready?" He asked. He had an encouraging, patient tone.

"Yeah," I said, my hands tightly gripping the wheel as I waited for control to be relinquished over to me, "What's the worst that can happen?"

"You wreck the plane and we all blow up in flames," Mr. Wagner said, completely ignoring the fact that I had meant that to be rhetorical, "…Of course, that's why I'm here."

And why he had said that so calmly. Apparently, he flew this thing better than anyone else, so if I sent it into and outright spinning nosedive, he was the man that could get it out.

Either that, or he could probably teleport a few of us safely away before it hit the ground. But he would probably leave me, because I was stupid and it would be my fault that it went down.

That was not thinking conducive with a man who was about to try and fly a high-tech plane, was it?

"There's no way I'm that bad at this," I said, "If I come anywhere near crashing this thing, I'll never drive anything ever again."

Mr. Wagner just chuckled before focusing on the task at hand, "I'm giving you control. You'll feel it in a moment," True enough, moments later, I felt tension in the wheel and tightened my arms a bit to keep everything perfectly level, "Now, we will go through a few maneuvers to see what you can do."

By basics, he wanted to see if I could safely gain and lower altitude, turn correctly, adjust our speed. Basic flying stuff with some fancy rolls and whatnot added in for flair. Nothing too difficult, and he never admonished me or took control of the plane over.

It went on that way for more than ten minutes before Mr. Wagner spoke up with a question, "Do you want to keep going with the test?" He asked. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, "It's yes or no."

A mystery? How fun, "Sure. Why not?" I told him.

Mr. Wagner entered a set of coordinates into the system and sat back in his seat, "Alright. Head to this location and find a place to land."

And that was it. I didn't get any more instruction, and truth be told, anyone actually flying the Blackbird on a mission shouldn't have needed one. The point of having a hoverjet was so it could land wherever the hell it needed to.

I brushed it off easily enough. I didn't care. I hadn't flown an actual plane before, despite having run numerous simulations. But all I had to do was treat it like a sim. No big deal.

The coordinates sent us to the Pocono Mountains where I had to find a sweet spot to touch down. I could have used a state park parking lot, but I had a feeling he was looking for a place more along the lines of where we would try to let people off to begin an operation, so I tried to find a less conventional area... like a big flat field nestled nicely up past a few foot trails. Yeah that was the ticket.

Hovering to a landing was a little clunkier than I would have liked. I grit my teeth when I felt it, but I don't think it showed on my face. I'm pretty sure Mr. Wagner gave me a look for it, because he maintained the Blackbird that we used. Either way, we were upright, the plane was on the ground. It was a successful landing... for the most part.

"Good," Mr. Wagner said, "Now take off, put us on autopilot, and you're finished."

Taking off was much easier. Just as long as you didn't tilt the damn plane into the ground on one end or the other, you were pretty much good to go.

Seriously, that was the most stress-free competition I did for that Field Day. The only reason to feel nervous was if you didn't know what the hell you were doing... which more than a few students taking part in the challenge didn't.

"Not bad," Mr. Wagner said after he had taken back control of the Blackbird, "How do you think you did?"

"Better than a 7?" I ventured as a guess. It couldn't have been that bad if he didn't have to stop me from doing anything, "I didn't kill us all, so I think it should be pretty good. Sorry. Black humor and self-deprecation probably don't go together when I'm flying a plane where I can _actually_ kill us."

All of those negative jokes probably stopped being funny twenty minutes ago. I had made a ton of them ever since I'd taken the wheel. Ever since I'd gotten on to begin with.

…Now that I think about it, that might have been a reason why all of the others waiting with me seemed so nervous. Whoops.

Mr. Wagner rested a hand on my shoulder supportively, "Let me tell you something, now that you've already finished. Half of being able to fly an aircraft is believing that you can," He said, before taking a big blink with his solid yellow eyes, "…The other half is actually learning _how_ , but just as long as you're working on that, I think you'll be fine. You're very good at this."

I sat there waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I never got a compliment without some kind of criticism to go with it. But Mr. Wagner didn't approach the issue again, "Err... thank you," I said honestly.

Seriously, I _never_ got straightforward compliments. You could count the number I'd gotten on one hand and still have enough fingers leftover to make a fist.

I left the cockpit to sit back and wait with the other students. The softy in me tried to get Megan jazzed up for her turn, even though she had never flown a plane in her life.

It worked. Megan was super-energetic. It was too easy to get her excited. By the time she was called on to fly, I think she really believed she could do it.

She was in the cockpit for a total of two minutes. During that time, we all felt a sharp jerk downward that lasted about fifteen seconds before everything leveled out.

While everyone was busy getting their heart rates back under control, Megan slipped back into her seat. She was trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Hey," I eventually called out, startling her enough to get a surprised ruffle of wings out of her, "What the hell happened? I thought you had this."

Her face lit up in embarrassment, "I didn't know planes used inverted controls!"

Oh. Well... I hadn't expected that. I knew that before I'd even taken the aviation class. I just thought it was general knowledge. Apparently I was mistaken.

I tried to find some kind of positive spin to put on things, "Uh, well, at least your team will have to drop one of your scores anyway."

"I guess you're right," Megan said, perking up a bit. She certainly didn't sweat the small stuff. Not for long, anyway, "I still think my squad will be fine! We did great in all of the other challenges."

Good lord, that girl could talk when she felt comfortable. Not that I had a problem with it. Listening to her was better than the tense, boring dead silence from before.

Megan chatted me up about Field Day stuff until we eventually landed back inside of the underground hangar bay the mansion had built underneath the basketball court.

As we all got off of the plane, there were members of several teams standing by waiting on us and the results.

I got off and made a beeline straight for where I saw Ruth standing and waiting for me.

"Score?" I asked, prompting her to point at a video board set up nearby. You normally saw them around school, not down in the underground area. They were usually to let students know about what was going on, functions, announcements and the like. For the next three days, they would be the boards of glory/humiliation, because they showed everyone's scores.

 **Flying Ability: Solaris – 8.5**

"I'll take it," I said to myself with a sigh, accepting the way today had gone. Things could have been much worse. If we couldn't work with what we had going into the next day's team events, we didn't deserve to do well.

"Bellamy is a good pilot, yes," Ruth said to me. She was smiling the way she usually did before she said something cryptic and vague, "You can't crash a plane in space, no. Because then it is a spaceship, yes!"

I stared at her, then looked straight up at the sky, the right back to Ruth, who was still smiling, "I don't know. I don't want to know," I said, before letting her enjoy her little joke, "...You were proud of that one, weren't you?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I seriously wondered how much of her visions she saw. Clearly not enough to change anything bad, but maybe enough for her to get a kick out of a few that weren't.

As David went back to his New Mutants team members, Noriko took a moment to scrutinize the leaderboard. While David had outscored me with a 9 flat, I had the second-best score by a long shot. Like I said, not a lot of students cared to learn how to fly a plane.

I saw her electric blue hair coming our way, "How do you know how to fly that thing so well?" Noriko asked me, "You've been here for what, two months?"

I was dead serious in my response, "Because the aviation classroom with the simulator is usually open after-hours and you'd be surprised how much you can get done when you never need to sleep."

Six-to-eight extra hours every night was a lot of time to kick around. A _lot_ of time.

Noriko seemed confused until Ruth shed some light on what I was talking about, "Bellamy has insomnia."

I saw Noriko's eyes go wide, "And they let him fly a plane?"

Hearing that must have startled her. Normally, I would have fostered that uncomfortable feeling she probably had for fun. But, being the upstanding person I was, or at least was trying to become, I decided it wasn't a good idea. The New Mutants didn't hate me… yet. I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

"Insomnia, not narcolepsy," I said, trying to get a few things straight, "I'm not gonna just nod off out of nowhere. The opposite actually. You have to damn near knock me out to get me to sleep."

"Huh," Noriko said before she gave me a thumbs up with her gauntlet, "Well, good luck with that."

I didn't even know why it mattered how I got to be passable at flying. I didn't win. David won. I could see him being awarded with the medal right then and there.

God, I wanted one of those medals. Eddie had one already, and that should have been enough, but _I_ wanted one. For me!

Don't judge me.

XxX

"MVP, MVP, MVP," Eddie kept chanting under his breath right behind me as we walked around campus, waiting for the scores to go up. He started to get louder in the hopes that someone, anyone else, would join in. Hisako just looked at him, rolled her eyes, and kept on going, "MVP, MVP."

"Stop," I said, nudging him backwards with my elbow, "Ruth got the best score out of all of us, and you actually won a competition."

Eddie scoffed and gave me a shove from behind, likely from being a downer. He was clearly feeling much better than he had been when we'd all gotten started that morning. At least that was good to see, "Are you kidding me? You got two scores over an eight. I couldn't have done that. I bet nobody else competing in this thing could have done that," He said, "And if there was, they didn't. You did."

He had a point. Maybe I had some kind of perfectionist streak that I hadn't known about until that moment. It would have explained why I was never satisfied with my own accomplishments, no matter what I did.

While I pondered along that line of thinking, I noticed Eddie straighten up and change his posture entirely. Looking back ahead to see what had nearly tripped him up, I noticed Miss Pryde at the back of the school, near where we would have split up to head to the separate boys and girls dorm buildings.

"Outstanding," Miss Pryde said, clapping her hands together. The smile she had on her face had enough light on it to charge me into overload. Not really, but you know what I mean, "I know it's just the first day, but your score this time already looks like a night and day difference from last time around."

I was able to catch a glimpse of our amassed scores as they flashed up on the board for a few seconds.

 **Overall Solo Event Score: Paladins – 8.5**

"Thank God," Hisako muttered, though she too was pleased with what we'd gotten so far. She was just trying to play it cool.

"So you're happy with that?" I asked Miss Pryde.

"Oh, very much so," She gestured her head back toward the board again, "Look."

 **1** **st** **Place: New Mutants – 9.1  
** **2** **nd** **Place: Paragons – 8.7  
** **3** **rd** **Place: Paladins – 8.5  
** **4** **th** **Place: Hellions –** **8.4  
** **5** **th** **Place: Chevaliers – 7.9**

It was close. Damn close. Any slip-up and we weren't so much as getting a top three podium spot, but we just squeezed in there. It likely wouldn't stay that way, as this had been just the first day, the first leg of events. I couldn't believe it. I'd expected that we'd easily outdo what the team had done during their last Field Day, but sheesh.

Eddie had to rub his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was real. The look of joy on his face, it was worth all of the hard work we'd put in so far, "Wait-wait-wait. How are we so close to the top spot?" He asked, overjoyed.

"Look," Hisako pointed out as the team scores per event rolled past again, "Everything the Hellions didn't get 10s on, they got lower scores than us. How'd that work out?"

That was just the best. I started to laugh from a good, healthy place. I'd thought Julian had chosen events for his team well. It only seemed that way because half of their scores were tens. In reality, he'd just stuck his shoo-ins in the events that they would dominate in and let the others do whatever else just to get marks to cover.

I suddenly felt much better about losing to Julian earlier, "Ha! The Hellions min-maxed like a son of a bitch!" I crowed victoriously. It was a good day.

Hisako gave me a big pat on the back, "You actually booked us well in the solo events. Way to go, Bel."

Miss Pryde's eyebrows rose in interest, "Bellamy chose the events?" She asked, sounding intrigued, "And everyone else was okay with that?"

All of the others just seemed to look at her as if to ask 'why not?'

"It clearly worked," Eddie said, "He even picked two events he could do well at. If he wasn't here, we probably would have stuck Hisako with the strength competition and I would have doubled up and taken the flying contest to try and make up points off of it. Our score would have been butchered."

"Accentuate the positives, hide the negatives," I said, trying to explain my way of thinking for which event I decided to keep us out of altogether, "No one needs to know what we suck at and how bad we suck at it."

As far as they knew, we didn't suck at anything. With a good-to-great spread of scores across the board, no one would have known what to expect from us later on. Which was great, because we didn't necessarily know either.

The important thing was, we had a chance heading into day two, and at the moment, nothing else mattered.

…And just like the day before, why did I feel like I was missing something important?

* * *

 **Superhero Olympics! YEAH! Dig it!**

 **Seriously, if that were a real thing that was on television for my viewing pleasure, I would watch the hell out of it. Go ahead and lie to me and say you wouldn't.**

 **Speaking of Olympics, I have no idea why America is so good at swimming… because God knows I'm not. I barely know how to, to the extent that water deeper than I am tall alarms me. I blame my youth pool instructors. They made you jump in the water and they said they would catch you, but they never did! That wasn't teaching me how to swim, people! That was teaching me how to drown with flair!**

… **I was talking about this story at some point.**

 **Things are off to a great start for the Paladins, but Bellamy can't help but shake the feeling that he's forgetting something. Whatever could it be? And why? Hmm…**

 **Eh, if he can't put his finger on it, it probably wasn't that big of a deal anyway.**

 **Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed. I'll be back with more stuff at some point, when life allows.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	8. School Spirit - Part II

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Who's your favorite member of the team, in whatever incarnation. Personally, Gambit's my main man. I love that smooth-talking, card-throwing, Cajun S.O.B.

 **Chapter 8: School Spirit – Part II**

* * *

When dawn broke on day two, it was clear that the staff were not messing around anymore. The fun and games were over, comparatively speaking to day one.

My butt was kicked out of my room by an ornery Mister Logan at the crack of dawn. That almost led to an awesome moment of Saberwolf pouncing on the guy for busting into my room uninvited, threatening me like a drill sergeant. The fight that followed would have absolutely destroyed my room if those two had started fighting, but I think it would have been worth it to see, even if I had been killed in the crossfire.

I wondered how I didn't hear him coming with as loud as he was when he got to me. I hadn't been asleep. Maybe the insomnia was starting to get to me?

Me and every other competing student in the boy's dorm were herded into the locker room, area, told to dress in our uniforms, and then go and meet up with our teams to decide who was splitting off to compete in what team competition.

Three events, two teammates each. Because my team had four instead of the normal six, we could use people twice if we needed to… which we did.

All of the guys left the locker room and headed back topside in one mass of disgruntled, cranky humanity… or mutantanity.

…I don't know what the mutant equivalent of that word is. Let it go, already.

"Well that was a pain in the ass," I said, adjusting the skin-tight light and dark blue Paladins uniform I was in. The cup I wore was pinching my thighs because I had to rush into my gear, "What was all of that for again? Competitions don't start until 10."

I had planned to wake up at 7 and convene with the crew at 8 to go over what we were going to do. We didn't need four hours to do that. The most complicated thing we had to talk about was who was pulling double-duty and on what event.

"I hit my head on the ceiling when he busted into my room," Eddie said, touching at the fresh knot on the crown of his noggin, "Am I bleeding?"

"I don't know. You're a ginger, man. It's all red up there to me."

"You suck."

" _You_ suck."

In the middle of the group, Santo took a deep breath and patted his rocky chest, clad in the Hellions' red, "Ahh, I love the smell of spandex and Right Guard in the morning," He said, doing his best Lt. Colonel Kilgore impression, "Smells like… victory."

I actually laughed at that. As a man whose father operated a movie theater for a living, I could appreciate the Apocalypse Now reference. It showed what he knew though. I wore Old Spice, "You know... one day, Field Day's gonna end."

Eddie completely missed what I was going for, "What are you talking about? It'll end tomorrow," He'd probably never seen the movie. I simply looked his way and swiped my hand far over his head, "What? What'd I miss?"

Ever helpful, Saberwolf chimed in from where he was walking next to us, "The mutant Rockslide made a reference to Apocalypse Now, an American motion picture released in the year 1979. I believe Bellamy was merely showing his understanding and appreciation by finishing the remainder of the quote."

"Why is that wolf-bot thing with you?" Santo asked, looking over the heads of several students to get a glimpse of Saberwolf, "I know for sure they're not gonna let you use him in any events."

"Because he's our mascot," I said. And because Mister Logan woke him up. Had that not happened, he would have been hanging out on his own for a second day, "Just look at him. Doesn't it seem like he's ready to cheer us on to victory?"

"I will be doing no such thing," Saberwolf said immediately, "I merely wish to observe. I have no desire to take part in these games."

"Who cares? Let them use it if they want to," Julian interjected smugly, "They need all the help they can get. They're hanging on to third place by their fingernails."

Okay, if he was going to be that guy today, this early to boot, I was going to get annoying. And I knew what would get his goat; reminding him that he wasn't number one.

"Yeah, I guess you would know, Fourth Place, since you're Fourth Place and all, Fourth Place," I could see him getting angrier at being reminded that the Hellions weren't sitting at the top of the heap just yet, "I'll be sure to take your expert, fourth place advice."

"I was led to believe his name was Julian Keller," Saberwolf inquired.

I let out a laugh and looked down at the big, metal wolf. He was just making it easier to keep this whole thing going, "It was, but since he wants to run his mouth at six-thirty in the goddamn morning, today it's 'Fourth Place', and for the rest of Field Day, it'll stay whatever rank his team is as long as it's lower than ours."

"Keep talking, Marcher," Julian seethed, amongst the company of his male squad members, "You had one good day. It was the best you all had. Instead of building to your peak, I say you all blew your wads yesterday."

Brian took a few steps away from Julian at his vulgar remark, "Dude, gross."

It was all just talk, but there was something to be taken from them. Day one had been big for us. It would have been easy to fall into a second day slump.

Time to make some magic happen.

XxX

They were getting more serious for the team challenges. For the first event, two members of each team would have to square up and fight an actual living, flesh-and-blood member of the X-Men. There was only one place on the premises that could accommodate something like that.

I felt a nagging itch in the back of my head as we stepped into the Danger Room. Whatever it was, I had to ignore it and focus.

Hisako and I were the money combo for combat. It was a no-brainer when that one came up that we were the two who were going in. Any combination of my other three squad members simply didn't come close to being as good, as evidenced by their performance in the last Field Day.

But it was a new day, yes it was. On paper, we were solid. Now we just had to perform.

"Not Miss Pryde. Not Miss Pryde," I started chanting quietly to myself as we stood there waiting on our opponent. It was still loud enough for Hisako to hear, "-Not Miss Pryde."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Hisako asked me. She was just as anxious as I was from how she couldn't seem to stand still and kept bouncing on her toes while we waited, "There's no way they're going to make us fight our teacher."

"And you really think that matters to them?" I said, somewhat disagreeing with her, "The headmistress and Miss Pryde have beef, remember?"

I wouldn't have put it past Miss Frost to stick us with our own teacher to fight, just this once, just to fuck with us. Do it and say it was randomly selected. 'Random' my incandescent ass.

Hisako seemed offended, "Of course. I've been on this team longer than you, remember?" She said before softening her stance, "...What's it over, by the way?"

Hell if I knew at the time, "Beats me. It seems like one of those things that go so far back, asking about it would only piss both of them off," It never came up, and I wasn't going to be the one to bring it up, "I just figured it wasn't worth it to mention, because it wouldn't change anything."

Hisako saw that as a good enough reason. Adults didn't like kids meddling in their affairs. It wasn't worth the headache to get involved, "Still, you're afraid of fighting Miss Pryde?" She said before leering at me with intent to tease, "Do you have the hots for her like Eddie does?"

That wasn't necessarily a bombshell, even if it was bad form to talk about that sort of thing amongst ourselves. The other day when he'd asked me to do something for him if my plan for our pre-Field Day team meeting didn't work, he'd asked me to try and get him some alone time with Miss Pryde, which was doable.

I had no idea what he thought was going to go down after he got it, but that wasn't my problem, especially since after we kicked ass during the solo events, I didn't have to do it anyway.

I gave Hisako a look. Did she think insinuating something like me wanting to hook up with someone bothered me? Hadn't she learned from watching me blatantly check out girls during Field Day opening ceremonies? I like women. A lot. I wasn't ten years old. There was no shame to my game.

"In the sense that I think she's fine, yes, but that's not the point," I said, taking the wind out of her sails, "How the fuck are we supposed to beat someone we can't hit?"

That was one of my combat nightmare. At least with other enemies, even if I couldn't hurt them, I could do something to at least slow them down. Miss Pryde could just phase through anything either of us threw at her.

I didn't care about hurting her. She could handle herself just fine. She was actually an X-Man. We weren't.

"By not necessarily trying to beat her? Just last the whole ten minutes?" Hisako ventured as a solution, "We're not supposed to win. We're supposed to be smart about how we deal with them."

"I want a perfect score though," I said, getting an exasperated sigh out of her. Screw that 'barely skating by' crap. Shoot for the stars! "If we can get a stoppage, we get ten sweet, delicious, hard-earned points."

"And if _we_ get stopped, we get a zero," Hisako argued back, "A ten would make us, but a zero would fuck us. Don't fuck us," She warned.

Hisako had a point. A good point. A point too good for me to ignore and fly off the handle in this fight.

Stupid logic. Couldn't it just take a backseat for once while I was trying to make some goddamn progress? I wanted to go balls-to-the-wall.

In the end, I let it go. It just wasn't the day for Bellamy Marcher to make himself a big-time player. The team came first, "Fine. We'll play it safe. But if I see an opening, I'm taking it, and I expect backup."

To punctuate this, I held up my hand with the index and pinky fingers held up, the tips of the middle and ring fingers pinched to the thumb.

Hisako stared like I was committing some kind of war crime by holding it up, "What the hell is that?"

"It's our thing. Our team thing," Eddie and I had decided on it the night before. We were both excited to use it as much as possible. We already had, three times before we split up for the competitions, "Come on, Hisako. Give it a tap."

She regarded it, then me, with all of the distaste of someone who was too good for what was going on, "You would have to laser my hand off and fix it like that to get me to do it."

I had no idea why she had to be so serious all of the time. It couldn't have been a fun way to live, "You're just exaggerating. Come on. 'Too sweet' me."

The depth of the frown on her face was borderline hilarious. I didn't think a human being could squint at another any harder, "Absolutely not."

"It's a show of solidarity. It says, 'I believe in you, do you believe in me?'" That had been my trump card, and she didn't buy what I was selling for a moment, "…Okay, I just think it looks cool. Do it," I demanded.

"Not a chance," She said, mentally digging herself in for my siege of requests.

Stubborn wench. This would only be as cool as she helped Eddie and I sell it to be. I _needed_ the 'too sweet' to be a thing. My end goal was to have kids all over the school doing it by the end of the semester.

"Please?" I finally begged, "You know you want to."

She hesitated forever, leaving me hanging for the longest time. Eventually, she got tired of my hand hovering just out of reach and returned the gesture. I laughed as she humored me.

She blew her long black locks out of her face in a huff, "There. At least no one else saw it," I promptly pointed at one of the camera drones circling the room, contradicting her. Everyone saw it. She yelled at me in what I could only assume were Japanese swears, topped off with a satisfying-, "To hell with you, Bellamy!"

The doors to the Danger Room opened and a man with auburn hair and a full black bodysuit with a pink chest plate underneath an open brown trench coat walked in. His eyes were an odd combination of solid black with red pupils.

"Nice to see dat you kids look all warmed up," He said with a distinct Cajun accent as he walked up to us, "Both of you gonna need it."

Remy LeBeau, a.k.a. Gambit.

Hisako and I looked at each other to make sure we were both on the same page. Really, no matter who we wound up drawing for this fight, it was never going to be easy.

I took a step forward just as the clock began starting to tick down from ten minutes. He hadn't started jumping us yet, so perhaps this could kill a few seconds, "So... do you know what we can do?" Gambit nodded, the calm, easy smile on his face never going away, "Alright, that makes asking this next question easier. What do you do?"

"It's a lot'o fancy, scientific explanation to get to the whole thing," He said, with an errant wave of his hand, "Basically... Remy makes things go 'boom'." With that, a playing card slipped from his sleeve into his hand. After a moment it seemed to be brimming from all edges with raw energy.

I didn't like the sound of that, or the looks of it.

Hisako looked around at the plain, regular features of the Danger Room, "So... are they going to turn the room into something?" She asked curiously. Again, that itch came up at the back of my mind. It was annoying! I needed to focus. Whatever was touching at my thoughts could wait. A fight was a'brewing, "It feels kind of blank in here."

Gambit chuckled, "Nah. No tricks, much as Remy be a fan of a good sleight a' hand," He said, "This test is just a question of can you go? As in, fight?"

I saw his body tense up. We weren't going to get any more time out of him. Thirty seconds was going to have to be enough, "Well when you put it that wa-," I shot at him before I finished my sentence. Gambit dodged to the side, in the direction that Hisako took off in to intercept him, armoring up as she did. Gambit got a clear view of me and threw the charged-up card in his hand right at me. Hisako saw where he was aiming and moved between the two of us, intercepting it.

"You need something a little tougher to hurt me," She said, balling a large armored fist to swing at him.

"Dat shot wasn't meant for you," Gambit dodged with some weird, ninja/parkour kind of agility. I tried to move around from a distance to try and get a good shot at him, but from how Hisako was barreling ahead to get a decent swing at him, I couldn't track him well enough to do so, "On the other hand, this one though..."

From inside his coat, he pulled out a collapsible bo staff and smacked Hisako in the armored right knee, bringing her down to a kneel.

"Corner pocket, no?" He said before jabbing her right in the chest, sending her flying back. I was floored.

In addition to the fact that he didn't look nearly strong enough to do anything like that to an armored Hisako, it was how easy he made it look. He swatted her leg like he was trying to punish her for something instead of hurt her. And he poked her like he was taking a shot with a pool cue.

He turned his eyes to me and grinned. I began pumping as much power to my legs as I could in short order. With hardly any visual warning whatsoever, more cards appeared in his free hand that he threw my way. In that time frame I had gotten enough energy going to jump from where I had been standing clear over Gambit to land between him and Hisako as she got back up.

The shot I fired flew past him, barely missing but taking him out of whatever he was about to do next, "Whoo!" He exclaimed, taking a moment to regain his proper footing. We were at a standoff after a quick round of action, "Didn't think you was that fast, homme."

"You alright, Armor?" I asked as Hisako got up as quickly as she could.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Didn't hurt," She said, standing ready to fight once again, "It was more embarrassing than anything else."

Gambit chuckled and gesture to us to bring it on, "Get used to that."

I shot at the ground directly in front of us, kicking up a momentary cloud of smoke. With Gambit's eyes off of us for a moment, I turned around and stepped on a platform of Hisako's armored hands. She sent me flying up to the ceiling where I landed and jumped off, taking aim at Gambit. He saw me coming and jumped out of the way. I rolled through the landing and twisted to my belly where I fired an extended blast at him, following him around the room, slowly catching up to him.

He saw my blast closing in and backflipped over it just as the beam was closing in. Hisako kept up with how he was moving all the way and jumped into the air to shoulder-check him. He turned in the air and tried to block with his staff. It hardly helped. Hisako still smacked him away. Credit to him, he recovered well, flipping through with the blow and landing feet-first on the wall to cushion the force and drop to the floor.

The man knew his acrobatics. I made a note to try and remember that trick. I could pull moves like that when I was charged up. I just had to practice to learn how.

It would have to wait though. From where he landed, he judged the distance between Hisako and I, then gauged his chances at taking on one of us or the other. He clearly thought his chances of taking me down first were better, for good reason, because he charged me.

Hisako reached for him and tried to slow him down, but he was still quicker than her. He made it past her and bombarded me with cards. I tried to dodge a few, but the force of the missed blasts knocked me around. Instead, I started picking them off out of midair, causing them to detonate prematurely. Gambit used his own covering fire to finally get close enough to me to start in with hand-to-hand combat.

Both hands on his bo staff, he took a swing at me. I ducked, but he used the back end of the weapon to hit me in the head. The pole smacked me vertically, right down the center of my face. My nose burned in pain. I fell down right on my butt.

Through the tears welling up in my eyes, I saw enough of him to kick forward at him from the floor. He stopped it cold with his staff, "Ah-ah-ah," Gambit chided with a wag of his finger.

Screw that. No one was going to taunt me and just get away with it. My palms were still on the floor, so I let off a blast that lifted me off of the floor, pushing me in Gambit's direction. My foot was still on his staff. He went stumbling back to where Hisako was charging his way, coming to back me up. He turned his head and saw her coming, pivoting his body out of the way to send my momentum flying in her direction.

As I flew past, he let a card go that exploded against my back. It sent me spinning out of control until I found myself nestled in the merciful, red, psionically-armored bosom of my teammate, "Sol! Are you alright?"

He hit me right between the shoulder blades. I couldn't even reach back there to touch at the burning feeling to get some relief, "Gah! That fucking hurt! Is it bad?"

She hesitated to answer at first, "Uh…" She saw Gambit coming right at us and set me down so we could both deal with him, "Well, get him back!"

I steadied myself and fired two blasts on opposite sides of Gambit before swinging them both inward to trap him. He ducked both beams and kept coming at us again, closing the distance quicker than my wounded body would have liked.

Hisako stuck close behind me, so when Gambit went to hit me with his staff again, she was able to block it with her armored arm. I swung myself off of her protective limb and kicked Gambit in the side of the head. He got an arm up to protect himself, but I felt my leg make contact with skull.

I was so happy when I felt his body give under the force of the kick, but it was short-lived.

Gambit's power was molecular acceleration, and yes, it's just as cool as it sounds. Basically, for inanimate objects, he can take its stored potential energy and turn it to kinetic energy. Since that isn't ever supposed to happen, the object blows up.

Why am I explaining this? Well, when his staff shot was blocked by Hisako, the sly bastard reached down to touch the floor. That explained why my kick landed so cleanly. In other words, the metal floor panel we had all been standing on, he charged it. And when I kicked him, I knocked him away to a safe distance, so he wouldn't be near us when it exploded.

...Stupid, lucky, Cajun dickhead.

 ***BOOM!** *

Thank God for two things. One, that Hisako had been armored up, because she might have had pieces of her missing if that hadn't been her mutant power. Two, that I had super solar powers that enhanced my body's abilities, because regular old squishy Bellamy would have been painting the Danger Room with his guts otherwise. He had to know our powers could endure that if he was willing to pull that move.

Even with the latter, Hisako's armor had taken most of the blast. I knew this for certain, because I was stuck underneath her afterwards, my ears ringing as I was pinned by a Japanese girl with big, transparent armor. Not as cool as it sounded.

"Hisako, if you're not as deaf as I am and you can hear me, please get off," I said, groaning in pain as I tried to push her off from a position with no leverage. Her armor had actual mass to it, "Seriously, you're kind of crushing me here."

Gambit, ever the asshole, took that moment to stand on top of Hisako's armored form and pointed down with his staff, "Good try, kids. But, bang-."

He didn't expect two beams of light to fire _through_ Hisako's armor and blow him away. The explosion was fantastic, as was the sight of his body flopping off of the floor like a dead fish. Does it make me a bad person that I enjoyed that?

Nah. He was gloating instead of finishing us off. He deserved it.

I took a moment to relax, there on my back, Hisako on top of me, muttering something about her head. The cold floor felt so good against my burning back. I just wanted to keep lying down.

Only it wasn't over yet. Gambit was getting up. He was getting up slowly, but he was getting up nonetheless.

"Damn it," I muttered as Hisako's armored fomr finally got up off of me. That little surprise play had been our trump card. Our biggest ace in the hole. My blasts by themselves were pure light. Light went right through Hisako's armor, which sucked for her when we discovered it while we were sparring, because I hit her dead center the first time it happened. What was great though, was that we learned I could shoot other things through the armor.

It was a shock tactic. A desperation move. It wasn't something that we just did whenever, because it would only work like that once. And since it didn't put Gambit down, it was wasted.

I spared a look at the clock. I had no clue how long we were all down for, but the clock was right at three minutes.

Hisako looked back down at me and cringed. She could guess how much her landing on me probably hurt, even knowing how sturdy I was, "Can you stand up? Are you good to keep going?"

I waved off her attempt to help me up. It was better to worry about herself for the time being. She'd had her armor up for a while ever since the fight had started. She couldn't maintain it forever, especially taking the kind of beating she had, "I kind of have to be. We've got three minutes left to go, and he's not gonna stop. Especially not after that," If he wasn't badly injured, he was probably pretty upset, "How are you doing?"

I could see the sweat on her brow, and the clamminess of her skin. It wasn't because this was a hard fight, "I'll last," She told me.

A frown spread across my face and I gave her a shove. She of course hardly budged, "Don't lie. If you're feeling tired, armor down," I said, "I can deal with him by myself long enough to give you a breather."

She glared at me, but she armored down. The need to rest overtook the desire to hang tough, "You're out of your mind. He's been handing you your ass every time he's gotten close."

This I knew, which was why I didn't plan on getting close again. I planned on ending things then and there.

I put my hands together, palm-to-palm and felt them stick, the heat from the energy I was generating growing between them. Something was happening. I had no idea what. When I was experimenting with my powers, I was always afraid to see, "Do you trust me?" I asked.

Hisako hesitated. Hard, "…" I pulled the palms of my hands away to look inside the pocket and saw a little ball of light. It didn't help convince her. She could feel the raw energy building. Even I knew anyone else around me could feel it, "..."

"It's a yes or no question!" I snapped at her, "Answer, please!"

She snapped out of her deep thought and took a few steps back for safety, not that I could blame her, "You don't just say something like that when we're doing something this dangerous and you're holding something like _that._ "

There was a solid ball building at the center of my hands, and it was heavy. The wider I parted my hands with my fingers locked, the bigger it got, the faster it started to spin, the louder it started to hum.

"What is that?" She said warily. Again, I couldn't blame her. I was scared too. This was the longest I had ever held this. I'd always wussed out before it got this far.

"I don't know," I said, slowly moving forward, carefully keeping my hands in that position. It felt like if I let my fingers loose, _something_ would happen. Whatever that something was, I hoped it was good, because Gambit was up, and looked ready to blow me up before I did it to him first.

He had two fists full of cards, both eyes locked on me. I had the distinct impression that he didn't like me at all, "No way Gambit's lettin' you throw dat lil' death ball."

"It's not a death ball," I said, offended. I had to say it louder than normal though, because the hum from the light ball was steadily getting louder, "...Okay, it might be a death ball."

"Mm-hmm," Gambit cocked his arms back to throw. I flinched and hoped the stream of consciousness that flowed from my mouth made enough sense to give me a chance.

"Dude, if you pick me off, it's gonna blow the fuck up," I quickly sputtered out, getting him to stop for a moment. I had to make the most of it, "You hear that? Skin contact with me is the only thing keeping this thing stable, and I'm pretty sure no one in the room is getting away from it when it goes."

I had no idea what this thing was going to do, but it felt like it was going to explode, and nothing that exploded and made loud sounds beforehand to this degree ever exploded lightly.

"You included?" Gambit said, trying to talk me down from today's bout of mutually assured destruction.

Smooth talking S.O.B. almost made me second guess myself for a moment, "...That may not have accounted into my plans," I admitted. Why did I admit that out loud?

"You had a plan?" Thank you, Hisako.

"Shut up, girl," I hissed back to her before turning my attention back to the actual threat, "So! Mister... Gambit, or LeBeau... or whatever the fuck you want to be called by students. You have thirty seconds to give up, or I am going to blow all of our asses to – best case, a hospital bed. Worst case, Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Purgatory, Shangri-la, or whatever alternate plane of existence floats your particular boat."

Gambit scoffed, "You wouldn't."

He might have been right, had he not said those particular words in that order. Telling me I wouldn't or couldn't do something was the worst possible way to try and get me to not do it.

"Armor'll be fine," I said, sounding confident in Hisako's chances of walking away, "Both of us need to be taken out to get a zero, but if we put you down, it doesn't matter how we do it, or if one of us goes down in the process, we still get a 10."

Those were the rules. Good for us. One of us, at least. It was going to be bad for me. That much I knew, and I was willing to accept that.

"You willin' to bet with your life like that, homme?" Gambit asked.

There wasn't really any turning back at this point. Besides, it wasn't like I could just make the ball go away. It was there, so I might as well have used it, "I'll tell you what; we are all about to find out in ten seconds."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Hisako ventured to ask again. She thought I was bluffing. I was not.

"Not even a little bit," I told her, "Armor up."

She would be fine. If she could take Gambit's big explosion that he tried on us without a scratch on her, she could handle whatever this would be. If I could just get between her and the direction of the blast, I had a chance to not completely get a face full of hot blast shockwave.

"Sol, I don't think-."

"-Hisako, your opinion is duly noted. Now armor the fuck up!"

In any less serious circumstance, yelling at her like that would have caused her to do about as close to the exact opposite of what I said as was reasonably, healthily possible. Whether she did so on this occasion because I said so, or because she was willing to err on the side of caution, it didn't matter. The moment I saw the red of her psionic protective suit go up, I was prepared to let my fingers separate. The ball of light was vibrating so hard, my hands were going numb. It wanted to be fired.

Gambit did not want it to be fired, with all of three seconds to spare.

"Alright, Remy surrenders," He said, putting his hands up, flicking his charged cards to the ceiling to explode harmlessly, "Dis ain't worth getting blown to bits over," He said somewhat ironically as bits of playing cards drifted down from the air, "You look just young and dumb enough to do it."

I wasn't taking him at his base word, "Say it out loud! I need it confirmed."

"Remy surrenders!"

Hisako armored down and let out the biggest sigh of relief I had ever heard from her. I was busy stomping the floor victoriously, "You heard the man! Give me my ten goddamn points!"

I was a little too loud for my teammate's tastes. Even the glow of victory wasn't enough to mellow Hisako out to the extent that she would get off of my back, "You know that would never work again in a million years," She chided me, but she was grinning wider than I'd ever seen her.

Actually, she could have it. I didn't bother arguing. There was no need. We finally got a ten. It didn't matter to me how we got it, "Don't need it to, Hisako. Don't need it to."

She shook her head, but also decided to just let it go. Besides, there was still something pretty important going on, and it was in my hands, "...What are you going to do with that now?" She asked, remembering the potentially very destructive object I had in my hands.

"I would re-absorb dat if I was you," Gambit advised, moving closer and closer to the door that was still shut tight. We must not have been the only ones wondering what to do with the light ball.

Thank you, captain obvious. If I knew how to do that, I would have by then. I didn't really need it anymore, did I?

"Um," By then, my hands had definitely gone numb. That couldn't have been a good sign about how much energy the ball had sucked out of me. "I'm scared to hold on, but I'm scared to let go," What color were my eyes by the way? "Hey, if I just stood all the way by the door and pointed it at the back wall, do you think-?"

"NO!"

I didn't need both of them to yell it at me. I would have gotten the message from just one.

XxX

I missed Ruth and Eddie's team test, and the third one as well. I had been stuck with a few of the senior X-Men trying to figure out a way to get rid of the big yellow ball of doom between my hands. Mister Logan suggested cutting off my hands as a joke. Pulled his claws out and everything. I said sure, if he wanted everyone in the room and half of the school to get vaporized. He replied, 'Why not?' After all, it wasn't like it would kill him.

I didn't know if he was serious or not, about any of it.

Eventually, Dr. McCoy measured the amount of energy I'd poured into it and decided that it wouldn't end the world if I set it off somewhere. So they took me outside and let me shoot it into Breakstone Lake. The tidal wave it made had to be seen to be believed. Mister Drake froze it at fifty feet high. I wish I had my phone. I would have taken a picture.

Either way, when they were done with me, they let me walk back to campus proper by myself to look for my squad. I wanted to know how everything had panned out for us.

Also, my body wanted me to lie down. Everything on me hurt. I couldn't wait to get out of my uniform to see how much of me was bruised up.

"Hey! There he is!"

I turned at the sound of Megan's accent and saw her flying a few feet above her team. I waved as she headed over, however I was not prepared for her to hug me.

I was paralyzed from the pain. I couldn't even yell. My poor, aching muscles. She didn't even notice, "Bellamy, that was so great! You and Hisako! You guys actually beat an X-Man! Like, you beat him!"

"Yes, yes, I'm awesome," I said, my voice straining. Megan wasn't strong, and all things considered, her touch wasn't unpleasant, but at that moment you could have pressed a pillow to my chest and it would have felt like a cactus, "Please let go. Oh God."

Ben put his glowing orange hand on Megan's shoulder to get her to let go, "Pixie, let him go. You saw the fight. He's got to be feeling it right now."

Megan saw some of the bruises on my shoulder that led underneath my top and quickly flew back, "Oops! Sorry!"

I seethed, not out of anger, because I would never be mad at a pretty girl hugging me, but out of pain, because any and all contact hurt, "Aww... it's not you, it's me," I said, downplaying any need for apologies, "I need aspirin, IcyHot, and sleep. Wow, I actually _could_ sleep tonight."

It was kind of a shame she let go though. She was soft and smelled _awesome._ If only my body hadn't been tenderized by an X-Men grade beatdown.

Having saved me from pleasant torment at the hands of Megan, Ben informed me of current events, "You weren't there, so just so you know, your team held on to third place," He told me, "Your overall score for team events came out to an 8.5."

It hurt to smile so much. My head was still throbbing, "Really? We kept the same average as the solo events? Okay then."

Good work, Paladins. 'Too sweets' for everybody once I saw them all again. I would have been more enthusiastic, but that could wait for when everything didn't hurt.

"If you and Armor hadn't gotten a 10 in the combat test, it would have been lower," Nicky said, grinning at me, fanged white teeth gleaming, "You got the highest score of the day in any event. Way to go," A ringing endorsement from the wolf boy. Fantastic.

Megan muscled back into the conversation, flying back in front of me, her wings fluttering to keep her aloft, "Yeah-yeah-yeah. Bel, you've got to tell me! How did you win?" She asked, a pouting curve to her lip, "Don't keep all the good tricks to yourself. The closest anyone else got was 8.8."

"And that wasn't us," Mark chimed in from the side, his headphones sitting comfortably around his neck.

Because he wasn't trying his hardest. None of the instructors probably were. Anyone who came up at the end of their fight still conscious should have figured that, "I don't even think Gambit really cared until things started getting dangerous, and even then, he still only kind of went at us seriously one good time," I said, "They weren't ever going to go all out on us. But just because they weren't didn't mean we wouldn't. So I went ham."

To a stupid, self-destructive degree. If we hadn't gotten the stoppage in the end, we might have been heavily penalized for how we went about doing it. It might not have worked on someone else that would have definitely demanded a pristine performance and would have fought as such.

For example, if we had fought Mister Summers, he likely would have taken our asses to school. He was too by-the-book, all substance. No amount of guts and crazy ingenuity was going to get to that guy without some serious steak to go with the sizzle.

Everyone else got it. Unfortunately for poor Megan, who was still in the process of being Americanized, the most important thing I said went over her head, because I said it in slang, "W-What? Ham? I don't-," Hope took pity on her and whispered what it meant to her on the sly, "Oh!"

"Well there's still day three," Ben said. He sounded determined, "The Paragons aren't laying down without a fight."

The last time I checked, our scores had been very close, with them and the New Mutants ahead of us. I didn't know what the leaderboards looked like now, but things were tight enough for them that Ben felt the need to call us out. The target was going to be on every top team's back for the final day.

I accepted it in what I felt was a graceful manner, "As much as I wish you would, I wasn't expecting you to," I said as I started walking away, "Just take it easy on me tomorrow, guys! I'm beat up!"

The Paragons weren't my last run-in for the day. When I said before that everyone kept up with Field Day, I meant everyone. More than a few people stopped me to tell me how great they thought my team was doing, or how we were going to get smashed by whoever the hell they were rooting for.

I got away from them as quickly as I could, but it wasn't fast enough. Come on, people. I just wanted a sandwich and a nap.

Eventually, I did work my way back around to the dorm side of the Institute, when one more person called out to me.

"Bellamy."

My name had been called so much that day, I was tempted to ignore it, but that was just too rude. It was just as well, because it wasn't some random passer-by trying to get my attention. It was Miss Pryde. It was interesting as to what she wanted, because she'd been pretty hands off as far as we were concerned since the start of Field Day events. All of the instructors were.

She'd popped in after the first day to let us know that we were doing well, so it wasn't surprising that she wanted to do so now, "Hey, Bel. You're the only one I didn't get to see today. Do you have a minute to talk?"

I wanted to lay down, damn it. But she was my advisor, and I honest-to-goodness liked her. If she was asking for me, it had to be for something worthwhile, "Sure," In the end, a minute or two wouldn't affect my rest and recovery time, "What's up?"

"Remember what I said about you doing something for me in exchange for that project you have me working on with you?" Miss Pryde asked as I walked the rest of the way over to her.

Absolutely. I kept track of whenever I owed someone or someone else owed me, "Yeah? You finally know what it is you want? I can't believe it took you this long to figure it out."

Miss Pryde was a fun mentor, and she was the one who told me to be more casual when we weren't in a situation where she had direct authority over me.

She grinned at me and tapped her own temple. Whatever this was, she was excited about it, "I knew what I wanted when I first brought it up. The last two days just gave me time to confirm that I made the right decision."

The right decision for what? If she had thought of something big over the last few days, none of us were privy to it, and I was as lost as could be. I hadn't done anything with her since we'd come to our original arrangement.

Miss Pryde paused, as though she were building up to what she wanted to say. But it wasn't out of nerves on her end, she just wanted to give _me_ a moment to get ready, "I want you to lead the Paladins."

With good reason. My legs almost gave out from the weight of the bomb she dropped on me. I couldn't believe what I'd heard at first. But when she remained standing there, leaning forward in anticipation as to how I would react, smile as wide as ever, I had to accept that she was being serious.

I also had to wonder if she had gone for the last few days with an undiagnosed concussion if this was the kind of choice she'd been sitting on with any kind of certainty.

I was befuddled. I needed an explanation. Why was I her prime choice? "Me? You're not going to ask someone that's been here longer? I mean, if I were you, I'd have gone to Hisako about this instead of me."

Miss Pryde shook her head adamantly. She was sticking with this. Any doubts she'd had were nonexistent, or had clearly been cast out due to whatever I'd done, "You were the one who took charge. No one else so much as even tried to do that since the team was first put together," She told me, "They listen to you. Even if I didn't ask you directly, you still would have been the informal leader. We would just be making it official."

Was it Field Day? Oh no. If that was what this was about, I felt the moral obligation to nip this in the bud before bad things happened, "I just don't see myself as some kind of amazing chess master than can work things to our advantage."

I was still getting used to the idea of other people counting on me, of other people being affected by my actions. I wasn't great at it yet. I tried to be thoughtful, but I had habits that were hard to break, if I ever would. Going from learning how to be more responsible to bearing most of the responsibility was a heck of a leap.

Miss Pryde's calm demeanor was helping to let me try to wrap my head around it all. No matter how gun shy I seemed to be, she wouldn't let me step back from the idea,"You think you have to be some kind of strategic mastermind to lead a squad?" I felt like I had to be serviceable in that department, yes, "Bel, it's not all about plots and schemes. You've got all of the qualities. You're smart _enough._ You're focused, your confidence is infectious. You're transparent and authentic, even passionate when you want to be. You're decisive, personable, and you're patient-."

I stopped her right there and started laughing. Those last two had to be some kind of joke, "Whoa-whoa-whoa. Personable? Have you met me? Most of the people who aren't on this team either hate me or think I'm weird. Or crazy," I added, before moving on to the next point, "And patient? I sure as hell wasn't patient out there today."

She smiled like I had fallen into her trap, "I'm not talking about in the field," She said, alluding to something else, "You're the best thing that's happened to Ruth since she joined this team. You have no idea."

I let out a snort, letting her know just how much I believed that, "Ruthie would have been fine if I'd never showed up."

Miss Pryde started to frown. Apparently, she didn't think it would be this difficult to get me onboard, "But she's better now than she would have been by now without you. And it's not only her. It's just her you've impacted the most."

The skepticism could be read from the curious lift of my eyebrow, "Oh really?"

Miss Pryde sighed and marched up to me, looking up right into my face, "Eddie needed someone to stand up and be as competitive as he is. Your whole 'hate to lose' thing resonates with how much he wants to be an X-Man. He really outdoes himself because you do in every assignment I have you do," She explained, her tone deadly serious, "Hisako needed someone to get under her skin enough to make her step up. She's got so much untapped potential, and whenever you two are at each other's throats, as much as I wish you would both take a chill pill, I see a real spark. She does better just so she can lord it over you, and her gloating just slides off of you like water off of a duck's back. You never care for any longer than thirty seconds. It annoys you long enough for her to get something out of it, but it never sticks to make you resent her."

Of course not. Losing at anything was my fault. If I failed, it meant that I wasn't good enough to get the job done. Nothing more, nothing less. Get mad, then get better. Resenting others for their talent was for mental midgets.

But I was beginning to see what she was getting at. Eddie didn't have the temperament to lead to match his drive. He couldn't be the spiritual focal point, even if he was more than willing to match the intensity of others. Hisako _could_ do it... eventually. Even I knew she was more than capable once she got her backside in gear. But for the time being, she needed an in-house motivator to push her to live up to reaching that point.

I didn't even have to think about why Ruth wasn't considered. I loved her to death, but bearing top responsibility for a squad was not in the cards for her.

While I was far from a finished product, or even passable as a real crisis situation sort of leader, I was the best option we had at the moment. I couldn't lie and say I wasn't much for thinking. Field Day results aside, she'd seen me take the lead on other things that required planning. I was a good enough fighter in my own right to lead the charge for whatever bullheaded mess I convinced the others to go along with me for.

And most importantly, her original point. I was the only one that had so much as even tried to grab the reins, even if only because someone had to steer the horse.

I'd been here significantly less longer than the others and still noticed that when I didn't try and direct the team, no one else really did. It took a month of us running around freestyling our drills before I picked up on it and tried to organize some stuff, just to give us some default gameplans to fall back on. If it had been that way all year long, before I got there, someone trying to get everyone to do anything had to seem like a breath of fresh air.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Miss Pryde just stood there, waiting patiently as I mulled it over. I didn't want to let her down either. It wasn't even about me owing her. For something this big, that was a bad excuse anyway.

I didn't want to let her down by saying no, but I didn't want to let her down by being a complete screw-up either. Her and everyone else.

...To hell with it. Man up.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. It was heavy. I felt it hit my gut,"...I'll only do it if everyone else says it's okay," I eventually said, staring her down eye-to-eye. I needed her to know how seriously I took this. It was a big deal. She didn't blink once I started speaking, "Everyone. Not just two out of three. This team's not big enough to handle any dissent like that."

She nodded and accepted that before backing away, smiling at me again, "You'll do great. I just know it," She said, turning to go her own way, "You already are."

"Yeah, we'll see about that tomorrow."

XxX

By the time I got back to my room, I was spent, both physically and mentally. It hadn't been a very easy day, but the life of a bonafide superhero wasn't supposed to be. It was what I had signed up for bumps, bruises, and all.

When I entered, Saberwolf perked up from where he had been relaxing and watching my TV.

"What's up, Wolf?" I greeted wearily, walking right through the room into my bathroom. It was there that I began the slow, agonizing process of peeling my uniform off.

"Bellamy," Wolf replied, acknowledging my presence, "Your performance was very surprising today."

I let out a grunt as I checked my self over in the mirror. There were bruises everywhere, and my back was an angry red, which was very impressive because my skin was brown. I was going to be sleeping face down for a little while, "It was everybody else doing their thing too. If the score me and Hisako had was all we had, we would be out of the running right now."

I could hear the soft sound of Wolf's hydraulics as he moved around, "I was not talking about just that. I expected that due to your ongoing problem with the Danger Room - your accusations of it gaining sentience - you would have refrained from stepping foot inside."

I didn't know what he was talking about, at least not at first. After thinking about it for a moment I felt a pop at the back of my head, like a joint loosening in my brain. From there, it all came roaring back.

I had been in the Danger Room. I had fought in the Danger Room. How had I not pitched some sort of bitch-fit about it, either before, during, or after? I had known what the competition would be since the opening ceremony. There was no way I would have let that go.

Wolf was more attentive to the human condition than I had expected, "What is the matter?" He asked.

"Nothing," I tried to insist. I failed.

Wolf walked over and looked me over. The red lights of his eye panels scanned me several times, just so he could make sure of what he was making an observation on, "Your jaw is clenched, your muscles have tightened, and your heart rate has increased. You are lying."

If he was that perceptive, maybe I could use that intelligence of his to help me out? It was worth a shot. It wasn't like there was anyone else I could go to who would listen to me, "Wolf, you're smart."

"-Smarter than you, yes."

Sometimes I got the feeling that Wolf didn't like me, despite the amount of time he spent with me, "..." I stared at him, trying to make him feel awkward, until I realized that as much as he tried to learn, it wasn't going to be that easy to teach him about human discomfort, "...I'm sorry, do you want me to pat you on the back? You know, since you don't have the hands to do it yourself?" An A.I. with an ego. What a world, "I was about to ask for advice."

"My apologies. You were saying?"

Good. At least he was willing to lend an ear and maybe help me out. It was all a man could ask for from another person, "If you were sure that someone did something to your brain, and you were certain they could do it again with a thought, but you didn't want to let it slide, how would you go about dealing with that?" I asked.

"Practically speaking, I would not," Wolf responded. It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't as if he didn't have his reasons, "The truly skilled warrior chooses his battles wisely. If you are suspicious of someone meddling with your mind, how would you prevent such a thing from happening a second time?"

He was right. While there were a handful of telepaths walking around the school, there was only one with the talent to slip something into my brain without me noticing anything _and_ with the motivations to do so. Confronting her would just end up with me looking ridiculous, because what could I do to Emma freaking Frost?

It sucked, but going up to her and calling her on it wasn't going to do anything for me. She didn't seem to strike me as the kind of person who cared about what she herself had done if she felt she was right about doing it. She definitely didn't seem to be the type who cared about public opinion.

I walked out of the bathroom, not in the mood to shower just yet due to our discussion, and flopped on the bed. I was at the end of my rope, "Wolf, I'm tired of this. I want to do something," I told my mechanical confidant, "Do you think shutting down the Danger Room is possible?"

Not forever. Just long enough to take it off of the table until Miss Pryde and I could finish with the replacement for the central computer.

Wolf was willing to conspire alongside me. Probably out of boredom. It had to have beaten just sitting around waiting for something to happen and observing a bunch of high school kids, "It depends. I believe the easiest way to do so would be to separate the room from whatever power source it uses."

Yeah. Way to put all of that tactical analysis and critical thinking to use. If we screwed the power, it would take longer than a few hours to fix it. Especially if they wouldn't know it happened until right when they started firing things up for the final day of competitions. It was either that, or put every kid competing in Field Day at risk tomorrow.

The format of the competition was a practical exercise for all teams. The only place that could contain such a thing without something getting destroyed on campus was the Danger Room, and they would use the room's functions to make it all work.

Fuck that.

I looked at the clock. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon. I had to wait until much later before I tried to go and do my thing.

XxX

My usual haunting hours of around one or two in the morning were still the best time to act. After all, I never came across anyone in the underground parts of the mansion that late at night. All of the other times I skulked around to exercise and do this or that, I had never been caught.

Of course, that had been before the first Danger Room incident when it had been discovered what I had been doing. No one had caught me since then, but that didn't mean that no one had forgotten. I was mostly right. I didn't run into anyone. I was followed, instead.

I wasn't turned on to this until I stopped moving while I had been trying to quietly move along in the underground corridors, "Hgn..." My body simply wouldn't budge an inch.

" _Oh don't worry, that will only last for a short time,"_ I heard inside of my head. Crap. I couldn't do anything but remain in place as I heard heels click off of the floor. Eventually Miss Frost walked in front of me into my line of sight, "Long enough for you to start explaining to me just what you're doing down here, Mister Marcher."

"Sure," I said, feeling control return to my body, "Just as soon as you tell me if you've been screwing with the wiring in my head."

Normally, being so direct usually threw people off in situations like this. Not tonight. She rolled her blue eyes nonchalantly in response, "Who else, pray tell, would it have been?"

I felt more amazement than outrage at how easily she copped to ganking up my brain with telepathy, "Ugh. At least you'll admit it," I muttered.

Miss Frost didn't let that one slide, "You already know that it happened. There's no reason to hide it now," Wow. She didn't regard me as any sort of threat at all. What if I'd had some kind of explosive temper? Well, I guess she wouldn't have cared about that much to begin with, "It wasn't a mind wipe. It wasn't mind control. It was just a subtle suggestion that what you were worrying about wasn't important."

"And you knew I'd gotten past it?"

"Dear, I felt it when you broke through the block I put on your thoughts," She almost sounded impressed, "I've been keeping tabs on you every so often for the last two days. I mistakenly thought things were all clear when you got through the combat exercise without breaking it, but here we are."

Indeed, "Why'd you do it?" I asked.

"Many reasons. You would have eventually caused fear and panic among the students. Even if your Danger Room theory had no legs, you're absolutely convinced that you're right. That kind of certainty is persuasive,"

"You said reason _s._ That means more than one."

Miss Frost paused for a moment, a frown tugging at her lips for a moment before she came forward with another reason, "With your mindset the way it was, you would have performed poorly in Field Day. Not just today, but throughout the entire competition. You would have been preoccupied," She explained, "That would have been a shame. I wanted to see how talented you really were, and I wasn't disappointed, until now at least."

She actually thought I was good at this? Wow. Until she'd said something, I thought she figured that I was at best just some kid that went to her school. At worst, I believed she saw me as some sort of troublemaker.

Looking back, I'm a little ashamed to admit that because of her 'better-than-you' attitude and the way she came off whenever most people talked to her, I believed as far as students went, she only cared personally about the ones in the Hellions; her handpicked squad of X-Men hopefuls.

Miss Frost continued explaining her circumstances and just what had been going on recently about my suspicions, "We spent yesterday running test after test, and for the sake of heeding your warning, we didn't hold any exercises using the Danger Room's systems. Again, we didn't find anything," My heart sank at what she said next, for two reasons, "Tomorrow, the practical exercise will be held inside of the Danger Room, operating under its full systems. But the Paladins may not be competing."

Fear started creeping into my heart. Not at the possibility of danger befalling me and others like me, but at the thought of rendering my friends' hard work meaningless, "You're going to disqualify us?"

I did not think this through. I did _not_ think this through whatsoever. Sometimes, I thought I did, but no. I was thinking of plans of action. Ways to go about doing the things that I wanted to do. Not what the fallout would be afterwards, which was usually way more important in hindsight.

There was no way I could have faced any of my friends if we were barred from competing because of me.

I didn't want to believe it. There was one day left. Miss Frost wouldn't throw us out when we were so close to the end, "Could you... really do that? Now?"

She looked at me with an expression of pity. I would have preferred her to be angry, "I don't want to, but I'm well within my rights to. You were going to sabotage the Danger Room," She said, "Mister Marcher, I'm willing to look past this, because I want a clean resolution to Field Day. But I need you to work with me. Let. It. Go. If there is a problem of this nature, it is our responsibility to manage it. Not the student body's."

I hated everything about this. I didn't want to let it go. I was informed. I was invested. I couldn't just forget about it. I wanted to make a difference.

But it was hard to do when no one believed you were right.

"Fine," I said. I had finally given up. There was no avenue left for me to go. Anyone who knew what I thought about the Danger Room thought I was nuts, and I couldn't prove the thing was sentient without forcing its hand, which I couldn't do. Case in point, what was happening right now.

A one-word reply didn't convince Miss Frost. She felt the need to drive her point home, "I don't just mean through Field Day," She said, "You're free to continue working on the new central computer with Katherine to replace the current one, but beyond that, nothing more. I will disqualify the Paladins if this comes up before the end of tomorrow. I will suspend you from squad duty if it comes up afterwards... if that's what it takes."

Message received. No rabble-rousing from this student, otherwise she would sanction my ass.

"There is nothing personal about this. I don't have anything against you. All things considered, I actually like you, believe it or not. But this school cannot exist in a state of chaos. Do you understand?"

Again, my background as a son of a movie theater owner was affecting how I dealt with things. Maverick heroics only worked in the movies and the comic books. The plot of those demanded that the hero would get past the authority figures that wanted things done by the book, no matter how improbable, because that was how the story progressed.

And then in the end, when they were proven right during the course of their crusade, all would be forgiven and they would be seen as the incredible champion that they were.

Yeah. Movies, comics, and video games were nice like that. Life didn't settle itself in so neatly most of the time.

This was the first time I'd felt legitimate failure. I'd come up short before, but this time I'd been shut down entirely. I couldn't convince anyone in a position to help me that there was a need to take immediate action. The only thing I could do was sit back and deal with it.

Yelling wasn't going to help. I couldn't fight the system. Not _this_ system. The best thing I could do was take it all in stride, head up, chest out.

"No, I don't understand. But... that's not the point, is it?" If this was how everything was going to go, I would wash my hands of it. Whatever happened later wasn't my problem anymore, "You win. I'm done. I've tried everything I can do. Even if I was prepared to risk getting kicked out of here to get what I'm after and shut the Danger Room down, you would stop me anyway before I could. So getting the boot wouldn't even be worth it."

Miss Frost could tell how down I was. My spirit wasn't quite broken, but it was just as worn down as my mind and body, "If it helps, I can redo the mental blocks. I can even wipe the entire thing from your mind, if you'd like."

In her own way, that was an offer of help. A way of trying to soften the blow, perhaps? Maybe she still thought I was slowly losing my grip on the waking world because of insomnia. Maybe I was?

The offer was tempting, because I was still going to think about the Danger Room stuff once I left. But there was no benefit to expunging it from my mind. Nothing other than blissful ignorance.

"No," I decided quickly, shrugging my shoulders, "Even if I said yes, I wouldn't be able to hide it. And when Miss Pryde found out, she'd probably try to kill you," It was the reason I didn't run to her in the first place after I first thought Miss Frost had done telepath stuff to me. That, and the fact that I hated getting others involved in my business.

For the first time since I'd seen her that night, Miss Frost smiled at me, "You're probably not wrong. She would absolutely _try,_ " The attempt at disarming wit didn't get so much as a rise out of me. It was all over my face, and soon it was on hers too, "Go get some rest for tomorrow. You've had quite the day. You look exhausted."

"Yeah..." I mumbled, turning and walking away. My head hurt, and it wasn't because of any mind meddling. My heart hurt, and it wasn't from any kind of physical trauma. I was at a loss, "Yeah."

Conflict, embarrassment, frustration, fatigue, pressure, fear. It was all adding up. Every step I took felt heavier than it should have.

Miss Frost bid me with a touch of counsel before I got too far away, "Don't ever lose that enthusiasm you have. You care. That's a good thing. Just try to rein it in a bit more," It was hard. I kept to my own affairs when I could, but when I was involved in something, anything, I was in all the way, "You're still so young. There's no need to rush to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. The world will do that on its own in good time, trust me."

Fair advice. Absolutely rock solid. It fit. Unfortunately, we were who we were. Mutants. And with that, came a laundry list of people and things looking to kill us.

Some of them were farther away than we could anticipate or know about, and others were closer than anyone wanted to consider.

* * *

 **Annnnnd there's another one, because why the hell not? I do what I want.**

 **Sorry, Bel. You don't have magical protagonist problem-solving powers just yet. You're going to have to gut this one out the hard way. But hey, adversity builds character!**

 **That's what I've been told, at least. So far, I'm not convinced, but what do I know? It's the best I've got for you, buddy.**

 **Alright, I'm done. Go ahead and direct your attention in a more worthwhile direction now. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm kept in until people need me for something.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	9. School Spirit - Part III

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Oh man, I forgot the weird disclaimer message this time. In my excuse, I am _REALLY_ hungover. It's not great, children.

 **Chapter 9: School Spirit – Part III**

* * *

The next morning came way too quickly for my tastes. A few hours of shuteye had done nothing to get my mood out of the pits. Over the last few days I had run the entire spectrum of being at an all-time high and feeling as low as a speck of dirt.

How could you make what you did matter?

It was hard trying to know how to be a good superhero. Maybe that was why I was in school for it? Eh, even heroes that had been doing the job for years still had certain aspects of the life that they needed to work out, though that usually lent itself more to their personal lives.

My problem-solving skills needed work. If only I were smarter. Miss Pryde said that I was smart enough. Smart enough for what? Clearly not this.

The answer to your problems never came from staring at the ceiling, no matter how effective a method it was of wasting time.

I turned to my side where I saw Saberwolf sleeping across the room. It was weird that he slept, but I didn't know enough about how he was made to ask. It wasn't like I would understand much about it.

I debated talking to him about how I felt. What was my life that an A.I. designed to hunt mutants was my confidant?

"Wolf," I said, "You awake?"

The lights across his eye panels softly glowed red as he slowly lifted his head, "I am now. What do you need?"

I thought about saying something, but I'd been complaining to the poor bastard enough already. He didn't need to hear my belly-aching every day, even if he was the only one who would listen.

Sitting up, I got out of bed and went to start my day, "Never mind. Don't worry your big, metal head over it."

Wolf seemed to hesitate for a moment, but eventually set himself back down and settled into what I assumed was 'sleep mode'.

He was just staying with me for a while, after all. It wasn't like he was mine or anything. When he left, he didn't need to be saddled down with any fallout from something he helped me do.

After dressing in my gear, I sat down and played some video games for a bit. Grand Theft Auto Online was a good way to relax for a bit. No pressure, and an opportunity to vent some stress, if I so felt the need. Wolf woke up properly and sat on the floor beside my bed to spectate.

"Do you think you will do well today?" He asked, "It is the last day of your competition."

Indeed it was. The big mysterious final event for the top ranking teams left in Field Day. The only one that no one taking part knew anything about.

I nudged Wolf with my foot, "You want me to win? I didn't think you cared," I received a swat from his cable of a tail in return, "Ow, damn you."

"I understand the concept of competition, Bellamy," Wolf said. That was obvious. He was the dirtiest gamer I had ever played. If he associated himself with me in any way, shape, or form, my losing would likely piss him off, because mentally it would reflect on him in some way, "Do you believe you can focus enough to perform well?"

"I guess we'll find out," I said, getting up and handing the controller over to Saberwolf's tail, "Don't play on my character if you're not going to get me a tank. I made another one for you for a reason," He looked at the controller before setting it down, "You don't want to play?"

Wolf shook his head and stood up, "I would like to watch the end of your competition. I am... curious," He had gone along with us yesterday to watch as well. He kept to himself

"Sure. We could use a cheerleader," I said gesturing for him to follow me to the competition site, "Want to compete?"

Saberwolf let out what passed as a sigh from him, "...Were it possible? Yes," He admitted, seemingly depressed by that fact, "However, it is too late for me to join any squads. Also, I am neither a mutant, making me ineligible to be a student."

If he had been eligible and would have joined, we would have had Field Day in the bag by the end of the second day. Alas, it was not to be so.

As we started out from my room, I took to flattering him. He was proud, which I thought was supposed to be something beneath higher intelligence, "For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure you'd literally shred any kid we're facing today, which probably isn't allowed."

"True," Wolf mentioned. His mood actually seemed to improve after I said what I did, "It would not be a very sporting competition were I involved."

It was official. My wolf-bot had an ego. A big one. I suppose I should have gotten wind of the signs sooner.

XxX

When I met up with my teammates outside of the main building of the institute, there was an air of finality between the four of us. It was the last day, our last chance to win, or so much as even medal. We'd gotten this close. Sealing the deal was by no means out of the question.

As we approached, Wolf walked over to Ruth. She stooped down and wrapped him up in a big hug around his neck. Oddly enough, he just let her do it. Those two got along well enough, which was good, and it made sense. They had the common ground of having been caught by the same assholes who wanted to harm and exploit them.

Hugging Wolf was dangerous enough in its own right. Even if he wasn't doing anything, he was still covered in lots of sharp objects, "Good morning, Saberwolf. She is happy to see you, yes!" Ruth said in greeting.

I was astounded at first, until I remembered that he had also been nice to Cessily from the Hellions, and to Megan from the Paragons. He must have had a thing for girls. Either that, or the people who taught him had also passed on the impression that he had to treat girls better than guys.

Eddie stepped forward and took off into the air with a booming step, "Whoo! Moment of truth! Ladies and gentleman, are you ready!?" He exclaimed as he shot into the air before propelling himself downward, stopping just short of touching the ground, Mission Impossible-style, "I said, are!? You!? Ready!?" He cut a flip for style points and lunged over at Hisako to grab her shoulders and shake her, "It's winning time! Are you ready!?"

Hisako's voice reverberated with every sudden jerk she received, "I've been ready, now get off of me already!" She said, managing to shove Eddie off of herself.

Eddie just laughed out loud. He clearly felt good today. And why not? This was the closest he had ever felt to being the one thing he wanted to be – one of the X-Men, "Dude! Are you ready? It's time to become the most badass kids at school!"

I wished I could have shared the feeling with him. On any other day, I probably would have been right there in his face, getting hyped and screaming right along with him. That is not what I did.

In a much more reserved manner than expected by the others, given the circumstances, I gave my answer, "I mean... we're going in there either way, so let's just get it done."

Underwhelming, to say the least.

Everyone was silent at first, as if they didn't know how to process something about what I'd said. I didn't get it. It wasn't like I said something to rile anyone up. Never one to bite his tongue, Eddie thankfully let me know what the problem was.

"'Just get it done'?" Eddie parroted, as though it didn't make sense that I wasn't pumped, "What's going on with you?" He asked me, seeing that I was less than enthused. We had a legitimate chance to win the whole thing, and I was miles away, "What happened to 'war-time general' Bellamy? We need that guy this time. This is it, man!"

"I'm still that guy!" I shouted, thumping myself hard on the chest, "I'm a stallion! I should be owned by a goddamn Middle Eastern sheik."

Eddie scoffed, clearly trying to get a rise out of me. It worked, "You were until yesterday, when Gambit hit you in the head and you remembered you were-."

I stopped him before he could finish, "If you say 'scared of the Danger Room,' you'd better remember I can hit a moving target," I said. Flying wasn't going to save him if that came out of his mouth.

Nobody was going to question whether or not I was ready for action. There was no spirit of the timid deer in my soul, and I would not entertain any opinions to the contrary. Compartmentalization was the key. When the lights came on and the main event started, I was pure money. Everyone knew this, except for the ones who didn't care... which was most people, honestly.

Hisako elbowed me from the side and spoke up, "I miss the old Bel. Charged-up gold Bel."

She rhymed. I didn't know why at first. By the time I did, it was too late, "Oh don't you dare-," Eddie was already in on it. To his credit, he followed right up, too quickly for me to shut it down.

Eddie threw an arm over my shoulder and shook me, "Gets on a roll Bel. Unrealistic goals Bel."

Hisako poked me on my other side, "We don't need the gloom and doom Bel. Afraid of the Danger Room Bel," Dear lord, they were taking turns.

"We need the put you in your place Bel. Shoot Hellion in the face Bel," Eddie said.

"Talk ya into buying land Bel. Gets too beat up to stand Bel."

"Lets Armor throw him like him 'woosh' Bel. Everybody's favorite douche Bel."

"I miss the teacher's pet Bel. Only one who can fly a jet Bel."

"The straight ready to strut Bel," Eddie stopped, seemingly at a loss, "Uh... always looking at girls' butts Bel."

That was where Hisako cut the whole thing off, "Annnnd it's dead. You killed it. Way to go, Eddie," It could have only gone on for so long, but even I saw it ending after that.

"What? I thought that was good," Eddie said in his own defense, "I was also running out of stuff to rhyme that fit him. I'm not good at this. Did it work?" He asked as Ruth let out a little giggle as she sat back.

If they had been trying to get me pumped up, they did a terrible job. I cringed through every single one. Poor Kanye West, and those were two words I never thought I would put together, "If I say yes, will you never do it again? That was terrible. We're all worse people for experiencing that."

Eddie stepped back as I peeled his arm from around my neck, "I don't care, as long as it made you want to fight," He told me.

I gave him a look to question the need for him to do such a thing, "That's not hard to do. You didn't have to butcher a song to piss me off," I said.

Ruth stood up from where she had been holding onto Saberwolf around his neck, "Bellamy is always angry, yes."

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Ruth, "I'm never angry at _you_. You're the only one who never gives me a reason to be mad," I told her before gesturing over to Eddie and Hisako, "Unlike our other jackass teammates, it seems like you actually respect me."

Eddie waved off my complaints with all of the casualness of digging for earwax, "Meh. The squad leader has to deal with that sort of thing. Get used to it," My entire body turned his way so fast, I might have broken reality for a moment, "What? What's with that look?"

I looked around and no one else seemed surprised by what he had said, "Wait, You guys know?"

Hisako shrugged her shoulders, as though none of this were a big deal, which it was to me, "Miss Pryde came to us about it first since you were gone already to get rid of your stupid light bomb. She said she'd track you down later and tell you. It looks like she did."

Indeed, although she hadn't told me that she'd let anyone else know, and that they were okay with the arrangement, "And you're fine with it?"

"Clearly. Seeing as how no one was giving you shit when you got here," Eddie explained, "Well… giving you shit about being the leader, at least."

That was surprising. If anyone had a problem with it, I had figured that it would be Hisako. She had just told me two days ago to my face that she didn't fully trust me. If that were the case, I figured me being in any kind of position of authority above her would have been out of the question.

Eddie gave me a hearty whack on the back to try and better shape me up, "Well, you ready to go, Patton?" He asked.

I was still a mite grumpy. But Eddie did enough to get me to brighten up a bit, "I can't be Patton. My plans don't have enough tanks in them... unless we're counting Hisako," I said.

"Oh, ha-ha. You're not funny," Damn woman. Always no-selling my jokes. That had actually been a decent one in my opinion.

And with that, as a team, we made our way down into the bowels of the Xavier Institute.

 **Overall Standings**

 **1** **st** **Place: New Mutants – 8.9  
** **2** **nd** **Place: Hellions – 8.8  
** **3** **rd** **Place: Paladins – 8.5  
** **4** **th** **Place: Paragons –** **8.2  
** **5** **th** **Place: Corsairs – 8.1**

Everyone heading to the site of the final challenge was able to get a look at the scores.

Our scores during day two's team events hadn't moved our meter one way or the other. We kept the same 8.5 overall score we'd gotten from our efforts on day one, which was still very much something we could work with. The Hellions had passed us with a higher score, but the New Mutants' score had dropped. Even so, we were right there. 0.4 points away from first place.

We were so close, Eddie could taste it. I know he could.

I didn't blame him for being all fired up, but my heart wasn't in it. Not all the way. The night before had stuck with me, and because of how the last day's main event would go down, I couldn't find it in me to put it to the back of my mind.

How could I? For the last event, we would all be stuck inside of the very place that I mistrusted with all of my heart and soul.

I had tried to do something about it, but you can't fight the system. Well, _I_ couldn't. Not when the system had mutants with infinitely more battle and strategy experience than me. I had no idea how far my powers actually allowed me to go. I had been a superhero-in-training for a handful of months. I didn't understand anything about how to get my way living this life.

If I had, there were so many other things I could have done. There were other ways I could have tried to show that the Danger Room was a threat. There were other ways I could have found a way to get the damn thing shut down.

But I didn't, because I didn't think of them. I didn't know.

Didn't. Didn't. Didn't. I hate that word. I always have. It was the most personal version of 'could have, would have, should have'. It was the ultimate word synonymous with failure that could have been avoided. Synonymous with defeat. And of course, that was important.

...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

Normally, that would have also included Field Day, but now not so much. Because if losing one's life was on the table, that was a more significant loss.

I was still not happy about doing this, but I was more afraid of not being there and something going wrong. Plus, I couldn't let my team down. They had been salivating at this chance for months.

XxX

The top five ranking teams were all included in the final event. It was the last chance for any team to take a jump in the rankings and medal, or even win the whole thing, and everyone involved had come with their working boots on.

All of us gathered outside of the Danger Room where Mister Summers stood in his X-Men gear. The Corsairs were his team, so I thought that it was a conflict of interest for him to be proctoring this thing, but if he was the leader of the X-Men, it was probably to put an official face to the final competition.

The Corsairs consisted of a full six student team. Three very hot blonde triplets, all telepaths with some freaky hive mind thing going on – Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe, the Stepford Cuckoos, also known as the Three-in-One. A tall girl with pink skin and pointed elf ears, of whom I had no idea what her powers were – Callie Betto, Dryad. A short dude covered in quills like a human-porcupine hybrid – Maxwell Jordan, Quill. And some mostly unassuming-looking blond guy – Dallas Gibson, Specter.

I didn't know any of them, personally. No classes or anything. The only reason I knew the Cuckoos' powers was because it was obvious. That, and everyone knew who they were in the first place. But screw that. We had our own telepath. Quality, not quantity.

...Though, they were all probably stronger than Ruth was when they were working together.

The Paladins were the only team that didn't have a full six. We were down two people compared to everyone else.

Looking around, I realized, it was amazing that we had even managed to make it this far.

From the finalists, we had the teacher's pet team in the New Mutants, the top-of-the-food-chain hand-picked chosen ones jock team in the Hellions, and more. It was entirely reasonable to hang one's hat on going that far.

Of course, that was loser talk.

There was a decided lack of shit talking going on, despite how hotly contested the entire Field Day experience had been. Mostly because everyone's boss-man was standing ten feet away, keeping a watchful eye on all of us.

The man in question, Mister Summers, coughed into his hand to get our attention and began to speak, "First, before we get started, I'd like to say congratulations to everyone who made it to this point. You've all trained hard, worked well together, and learned as much as you could from your advisors. But we can only have one winning team."

"-Which will be the Hellions, naturally," Julian said under his breath, but loud enough to be heard over the dead silence of everyone else.

Mister Summers heard him and walked right over, looming over Julian and staring right at him behind the visor on his face. Getting a staredown from Cyclops was a pretty intimidating prospect, "Oh, I didn't know you had precognition. I figured that would be something you would share with Emma," He said, before turning to the rest of us, "Well, you heard Hellion, everyone. You can all just go back to your dorms. Field Day might as well be over."

Everyone took that moment to boo and heap trash-talk on Julian, and by extension the rest of his team.

Noriko snickered over from where she was standing with the rest of her New Mutants team, "Way to go, Keller. Now it's not just me. Everyone's gonna be looking to shit-can you during the finals," By now I had noticed that she had beef with Julian, which could have been for just about anything, given his personality. Even so, she seemed to take marked satisfaction in seeing him shut down. It was probably the only reason she'd bothered to learn my name before.

"Some people just can't handle the truth," Julian shot back, before wincing at a pinch from Cessily, "Ow! Cess!" Metal fingernails on human skin probably did hurt, to be fair, "Why!?"

Cessily was unforgiving in her rebuke, "Don't go setting people off before this whole thing even starts. Do you _want_ everyone to try and take us out first?" Being in second place overall would have made them enough of a target as it was.

Mister Summers was able to wrangle control back and quickly get us all quiet again, "Now if we're through with variety hour, I'm going to explain the rules," That was all he needed to say to get us to shut up, "This is a team free-for-all, but with certain parameters you have to adhere to if you want to come out on top."

You could have heard a pin drop. No one was being a smartass. No one was ignoring his instructions. The words that would come out of his mouth explaining just how all of this would work was like precious oxygen.

All eyes were on him. He knew it, so he went on ahead, "It's a point-based system. To score a point, you must capture an objective and hold onto it until the end of the 60 minute time period. Objectives are small objects that you have to keep on you for it to count as being in your team's possession. There are 10 available objectives in total. All individual objectives are worth one point. The team with the most points receives the highest score – 10," He said, "You can use whatever means you see fit to obtain an objective and keep it away from the other teams. Does anyone have any questions?"

No one did. The scores were all so close that whoever won and got the normal ten points for winning would be the 1st place team. No one wanted to ask how points would be distributed among the other teams. It was irrelevant. First place was the only place that mattered.

The doors to the Danger Room opened. I tried not to flinch. I really didn't want to go in there.

You don't understand just from me telling you. Most people who hear about it just think it's a high-tech obstacle course. Most of them also didn't have to go through the sheer terror I felt when it went out of control. It hurts. When you get hit it's for real. Even with the countermeasures in place, if something goes wrong, you can still be killed.

The room was trying to break its countermeasures so that it could do us in itself. But until then, all it could do was wait for one of us to mess up badly enough because of its meddling to off ourselves.

Mister Summers went in first and gestured for the rest of us to follow, "The final competition begins at 1200 hours. You've got ten minutes to get your last preparations ready," He held a bunch of compass-looking devices in his hands, "Each team that enters gets one of these. They'll help you find the objectives."

All of us went inside and headed off to our own little sections to huddle up. I rubbed my chin, trying to block out how I felt. Compartmentalization, like I said. There was a time and a place for everything. You could only deal with what was in your control, "Okay. Let's put our heads together and put something together here. I don't think winging it is gonna work this time."

Ruth seemed motivated. She stood tall and shifted her feet in excitement, "She wants to win, yes. Pardon. Tell her what to do, and she will try her best."

"Damn straight," Eddie followed up, giving Ruth a nudge of encouragement, "This sounds like a big old clusterfuck. What do you guys think?"

Hisako crossed her arms, trying to size up just where we stood among the others competing, "Dunno. We're the only team in this thing with any less than six. Any ideas, Sol?"

I looked around at the other teams. There were things that we could do that others couldn't, but to a man, if it came down to it, the team sizes would make the difference in anyone else's favor. A straight fight would be the worst thing we could find ourselves in, even if we were better.

I made my decision on how we were going to handle the competition, "Don't go for any objectives. If we do, everyone'll just target us because they all have the numbers advantage," I said, "Just hang back until they start divvying up some of the points and pick each other apart a bit. Then we take our shot."

We would go down early to take attention off of us and observe. From there we could start actively working to win.

Hisako's brow furrowed in worry, "Are you sure?" She asked, "We have to get the most here and now if we want to even think about winning Field Day. Shouldn't we use every second we can for that?"

She had a point. Needless to say, there would be one or two teams that would take the full-court press approach straight out of the gate. Even so, that wouldn't work for us, "This thing lasts thirty minutes, no matter what. Once we get enough, we'll get worn down trying to hold on to what we _do_ get," I said, giving her my reasoning, "I say we scavenge. Pick up the scraps. Unless you want to be a fat, juicy target with lots of points for the bad guys to come after the whole time we're fighting."

When it got down to the final few minutes, it would be a mad dash trying to pick off anyone with a significant number of points. If that just so happened to be us, we were not equipped to fend off a multi-pronged attack coming from all sides.

What we _could_ do was slip through all of the chaos and make plays that counted when no one was paying attention to us.

Either the hunter or the hunted. The lean, hungry predator, or the slow, overfed prey. Those were our choices. I knew which one I preferred. It wasn't the hero option, but I would have rather won than looked cool. Especially because no one would remember how we won, just that we did.

"I hope everyone did their cardio!" Eddie exclaimed, waving jazz hands before losing that manufactured enthusiasm, "This is going to be miserable."

Hisako quickly counted out the teams and the number of points available for everyone to take, "If everything is split evenly, there's two objectives for every team. That's not going to happen, but... theoretically, if we can get four, I don't see anyone realistically getting five. If we can get five and hold on to them, we'll be tied for first at the very least, no matter what."

That was the S-rank goal then. Five objectives.

Slowly, the room started to grow quieter and quieter. Everyone's huddle instead turned to something of a defensive formation.

Every team stood at the ready as time ticked down. Fifty seconds to noon. There had been no warning call to let us all know. It was just that everyone had been aware of the time. They were going to do this live-fire style. If you were ready, you were ready. If you weren't, too bad. You were warned. It was your job to be professional.

That in mind, it was time for last instructions.

Not knowing what to expect from our to-be battlefield once the Danger Room did its thing, I kept my eyes peeled on everything around us, "Blindfold, when the time starts ticking down, I'll be asking you who has an objective, so you've got to keep track of that in this whole mess. Can you do that on top of what else I'm going to ask you for?"

"She appreciates Bellamy believing in her, thank you," Ruth said, smiling at me gratefully, "No, she will not let you down, yes. Not again, no."

I liked her drive, even if I didn't agree with her sentiment. She never let me down. Not once, "Are you sure? It'll be a lot. We're gonna try that thing we've been working on," Ruth glowered at me. Even if her eyes were covered by her blindfold, the rest of her face reacted so spectacularly, I could feel her consternation at me, "Alright, alright. Don't get all offended, sheesh. Let's kick some ass."

"Too sweet?" Eddie proposed, holding up the intended hand-sign.

I responded in kind with my own, "Too sweet."

We were dorks. It was great. Even Ruth did it. Hell, she did it gleefully.

Once again, Hisako was not amused, "You two are going to run that into the ground," Too cool for little team idiosyncrasies, it seemed, "It still looks dumb, by the way."

I let out a hum of passive acknowledgment, "Those your last words before we start?" I asked, trying to be a pain.

She took a second or two to honestly think about it and answer, "Actually no. Don't shoot anymore Lux Bombs."

I was unfamiliar with the term. I'd certainly never said it before. What did 'lux' even mean? And how did I make a bomb for it? "What's a Lux Bomb?"

Hisako looked at me like I was stupid for being uninformed. I later found out that 'lux' was Latin for light. Why she did a translation into Latin instead of Japanese, I never thought to ask. Was that racist to wonder? "The light bomb you made yesterday. That's what I'm calling it," It made sense to her, so she stuck with it, "You set it off outside, so I'm not sure how big the blast actually was or how much this room actually alters distance. Don't do it. You might kill us all."

I had no plans to do so, seeing as how even if it didn't kill us all, using it on one of the other students might have killed them. I wasn't that much of a jerk. I had limits.

I found a sense of amusement at the idea of her giving half enough of a damn to label that stupid move as anything at all though. I wasn't the only one either, as Eddie spoke up, "You're naming Sol's attacks now? You gonna do that for all of us."

Hisako turned to look at him with a grin, sticking the tip of her tongue out between her teeth, "Get something worth naming, and I might. If there's a term for Fastball Special – which we also do, by the way – I don't see why not."

Without warning, the environment around us began to change. In a matter of seconds, we weren't in a big metal room anymore. We were in a thick jungle. The sun was out, but there was so much plant life around us, it almost seemed dark. It was humid, almost oppressively so. Animals and insects could be heard all around us.

Play time was officially over.

Eddie looked around and immediately began to complain, "Man, I hate jungle simulations," Everyone else put a finger to their lips to signal to him to be silent, "Oh, sorry," He whispered.

I nodded to him before looking over at Ruth. She knew what I wanted. It was part of the plan we had worked out, and also something that we had been working with Ruth on for a while.

It took a moment to take effect, but when it did we all felt it. It was like several outside thoughts were all dropped into our minds at the same time. For the purposes of the exercise, Ruth had linked out conscious thoughts so we could coordinate without speaking.

It wasn't as easy to get together as you might have thought. First of all, it took forever for Ruth to figure out the right balance to keep it all together and still manage other things as well. Secondly, Hisako thought to herself in Japanese, which none of us spoke. So when she was addressing us, she sometimes had to think a thought to herself twice.

We would work like this to maintain stealth and long-distance contact for as long as possible. None of us were ninjas or anything, but then again, neither was anyone else. Any advantage our team could take, we would.

" _Should I fly up and get a look at our bearings?"_ Eddie asked all of us together, _"We know we're in a jungle, but nothing else."_

" _Not yet,"_ Hisako thought out loud for the rest of us to hear, _"You're not the only one who can fly. And we don't know how close anyone else is or what their view is. You might tip off another team on where we are, or worse, get yourself caught in a dogfight."_

She had a good point. Subtlety was the name of the game here. Our whole plan was doing our best to pick and choose our fights after we had gotten a look at how others were fairing.

 _Armor's right,"_ I thought to everyone, _"But he can take a quick look. Just pop your head up above the canopy and get a glance around. Blindfold can project what you're seeing to the rest of us, right?"_ I asked, directing the tail end of that thought to Ruth.

Ruth nodded. She looked happy to be able to contribute to the rest of the team. Good for her. I knew she could be outstanding. All she needed was a push, _"Yes, she can do that, thank you."_

That was all our resident flyer needed to hear. In a matter of seconds, he had taken off upward, and we all got a quick look at just where we were supposed to be.

There was a jungle, a crevice at one end of the location, and a mountain at the other edge. The instructors must have wanted a variety of terrains for us to have to deal with.

When Eddie was finished, he dropped back down to the ground. I greeted him by handing over the thing we were supposed to use to look for objectives, _"Wing, you've got the searching thingamajig. We need that,"_ Eddie looked at the device and went to hand it over before I stopped him, _"No-no-no, you keep it. You're faster than all of us. If we need to get to one in a hurry, you're our man."_

And so, our approach was set. From there we had the thrilling task of sneaking our way through the jungle. The quietest person out of all of us was Eddie, because he didn't have to touch the ground to move. Ruth wasn't a slouch either. For a blind girl, her footsteps were incredibly soft.

She led the way, because she was the best person available to show us where to go. Hisako was right behind her, in a position where she could move to defend her immediately if something happened. I was behind the two of them, because I could shoot through Hisako's armor if we needed it.

We were doing recon, and thanks to Ruth, ten minutes in, we stumbled upon a quick look at some of our competition.

Other teams had taken the approach of splitting up as well, and with the way they had done it, they had no problem attacking groups with higher numbers than them.

I watched with my own two eyes, two members of the Hellions, Santo and the girl in the niqab, Sooraya, take on all six members of the Paragons. It was amazing.

Sooraya had turned herself into a human sandstorm, while Santo ran through it and hit everyone within arm's reach. Eventually, he was able to get his hands on one of the objectives – a decent-sized ring that flashed multiple colors.

The big rocky giant, grinned, despite the angry grains of sand bouncing off of his frame, "Thanks for the points, suckers!" He said before running back off through the sandstorm with a glowing ball in his hand. It dissipated once he was gone, leaving six slightly beaten-up, disgruntled teenage mutants without an objective. Some more than others. Through the sand, I saw Nicky and Mark get _nailed_. It was a surprise that they were getting up.

We had other things to worry about though. That had been an effective attack.

At least now I knew what the objectives looked like.

" _Shit,"_ I thought loud enough for the rest of my team to pick up on.

Eddie elbowed me as he fired back a thought of his own, _"What?"_

" _Well, as you can see, the Hellions split off,"_ I told them all as we started to slip away. Maybe Julian really _was_ a better leader than I'd given him credit for, which was not a good thing for me, _"The team that has the powers to take advantage of working like that actually did it. Fantastic."_

Hisako dropped a timely truth and logic bomb on me, _"Would you rather they stayed together? I don't want to fight that team's full line up. I don't want to fight them split off from each other."_

Ruth took a moment, as though she were searching for something. _"Santo and Sooraya, Julian and Brian, Cessily and Kevin. Yes, that is how the Hellions split up, thank you."_

So sand powers and living rock guy in Sooraya and Santo, telekinesis for Julian and... whatever Brian's powers were, plus Cessily's living liquid metal and the ultimate bad touch from Kevin. Bad touch as in, whatever living thing he touches decays.

" _...Okay, I'm willing to fight one of those combinations,"_ Hisako told us, changing her last statement, _"Seeing as how I'm the only one of us that can actually touch Kevin as long as I'm armored up, that combo seems like a cakewalk."_

This was good. We could already start making plans on how to deal with the Hellions now that we knew what their approach was. Depending on who we got to first and who had a good amount of objectives, we could go in and out and start victimizing them, one group at a time.

And that was when was smashed from above with 150 pounds of claws, fur, and teeth.

"Holy shit! Bel!"

I heard Eddie yell out at me, but I had problems of my own to deal with. Namely, the creature scratching into my arms and shoulders, mouth wide open as he tried to stretch and bite off my face.

A closed mouth doesn't get fed, but in this case, an open mouth got a throat full of explosive light blast. Because it was something the Danger Room made to mess with us (me), there wasn't any gore to shower me in. It just broke apart into holographic pixels.

The cuts that it left on me didn't go away though. They hurt and bled. I looked at the red covering my arms and breathed sharply through my teeth, "That fucking jaguar did not exist a second ago!" I choked out, louder than I should have.

Eddie flapped his arms to try and get my attention to calm me down. It made him look like a bird, "Bel, shh! Use the link," He urged, even though he was talking out loud, the same as me.

I was hurt and upset, and I wanted to use this as fuel that the Danger Room was trying to take a chunk out of my ass, but it wouldn't have done anything. I knew that, _"Forget it. Nothing we can do but keep moving."_

" _Are you alright?"_

I would have been better if we actually had first aid equipment on us, but that wasn't the case, _"Sure. They're not_ too _deep."_ All I could do was try to suck it up for 45 more minutes and then sprint to the medical bay to get stitched up.

And then, all hell broke loose.

We were still fairly close to where the Paragons had been attacked when the Danger Room decided to spawn a jaguar on my back. With the momentary ruckus that little run-in had caused, they were able to shake off their cobwebs and come for us themselves.

A big wave of fire set the trees around us ablaze. Burning leaves up above us started dropping from the branches. We all started running around to keep from getting lit up. I looked around and could see a big fireball attached to a human body trying to hide behind some trees and fired a shot to try and pick it off. Yes, I could see you, Ben. Stealth isn't your strength when you've got a flaming head.

Hisako saw where I fired the shot and got a look at Ben, the same as I did. She engulfed herself in her full body armor and charged right at him, ignoring his attempt to roast her in retaliation.

I turned to see what else was going on in time to see Nicky flying at me, set to pounce on me like the wolf boy he looked like. Good old Eddie shoulder-checked him in mid-air, sending him flying away from me.

I took a quick glance around to see just what else we were dealing with. It was just horrible luck that this was happening. Neither of us had an objective anymore. Working out some kind of deal would have been better, but unfortunately with adrenaline running high on both sides and the fact that they were still probably stinging from being caught with their pants down by the Hellions kept us all from thinking about it before we wound up coming to blows.

There was a light blue specter darting around. I didn't know what it would do if it hit me, but I had to dodge it three or four times. It was a good thing I had already been on my toes, because I wound up having to dodge a blast that narrowly missed hitting me right in the body.

The source? Tall, dark hair, the kind of looks girls fell for, and the musical tastes that made girls think he was deep. The music thing was mostly for his powers though. Mark Sheppard, a.k.a DJ.

"You really want to go shot-for-shot with me, DJ?" I asked, charging up my hands. He was now my primary threat. Ben was tough with his fire powers, but as long as Hisako was focusing most of her attention on him, he couldn't afford to pay more attention to anyone else. Mark was mine to deal with for the time being, "I don't know everything about how your team fights, but I _know_ I'm faster than you."

I was firing pure light. Whatever his blasts were made of, if we went up against each other I felt confident that I had the upper hand.

Mark shrugged, the sound of blasty, gut-bucket rock blaring through the headphones around his neck, "Maybe. I guess that means I've got to-," Shoot first, which he went to try and do. Unfortunately for him, I practiced quickdraw shooting all the time, "Ow! Fuck!"

I winged him in the shoulder just before he could fire. His shot hit dirt, he went down, and I felt good.

...For about five seconds.

Before I could actually follow up on DJ while he was down, my vision was filled with wings and the girl attached to them.

"Sorry, Bellamy!" Megan said before flapping her wings in my direction. The last thing I saw was pink dust flying my way. The last thing I heard was Megan's voice over the sound of my own coughing, "Nothing personal!"

The best laid plans often went awry. My plan hadn't even been solid. It was temporarily passable at best. Even so, there was still nothing you could do about those plans when you ate a face full of PCP, or whatever the hell Megan's powder was made out of.

From there... well, I can't really describe all of the things that I saw. I can give you a quick rundown of a bit of it though.

Hot girls, some of whom I knew. Some less than fully clothed, to say the least. I'm not ashamed.

HP bars, experience point meters, dialogue prompts, and other video game stuff.

...I'm pretty sure I was also a member of the Toon Squad from Space Jam for a few minutes.

Don't you judge me. That movie is amazing.

XxX

When things stopped being all trippy, I woke up facedown in the dark, by myself, with a splitting headache, slobbering all over the ground. You know, a really classy way to wake back up. The headache could not be overstated enough though. It felt like I had been hit by a truck.

I could hear the echo from every move I made, shifting on the hard floor as I started pushing myself up. I funneled enough light to my hands to make a glowstick out of myself . With the light, I could see bandages on my arms from where the jaguar tore into me. Whoever had been carrying those was my hero. The cuts and scratches still hurt, but at least I wasn't bleeding all over the place now.

Finding the way out easy enough, though walking wasn't kind for a while until my poor brain settled itself.

Outside of the cave, I saw we were in some kind of weird mountainous area. In the distance, I could see the jungle that I had more than likely come from to get to wherever I was.

There was a rocky outcropping right outside of the entrance, keeping it concealed from any overhead flyers that might have been scouting the location. As far as spots to stash me while I was a liability to the rest of the team, they could have done much worse.

"You done being crazy?"

I looked around for the source of the familiar voice and found Hisako trying to keep herself concealed close to the cave entrance. Not that it was hard. There was a lot of space for her to use, and when she wasn't totally armored up, she was fairly tiny enough to hide.

I made my way over to her and sat down against a rock. My head was still kind of spinning. It was manageable, but the sooner I could get rid of it, the better, "I guess so. So what's up? What happened and what's going on now?"

Hisako pursed her lips, maybe trying to think of where to begin. Every so often, we'd hear a faint rumbling sound in the distance. I wondered just how desperate some teams were getting to net themselves some points, "Well first, you've been down for twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of the test gone. That only left thirty for us to do our thing. I wasn't pleased to hear that.

"Fuck!" I hissed under my breath. No more yelling. I remember what happened the last time I yelled. I brought down a team of superpowered teenagers onto our heads, "Alright, so what happened?"

She scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it over my way, "Pixie dusted you," I brushed off the dirt that got on me and gave her a look that reflected the confusion I had. As if I were just supposed to know what that meant. Her explanation hadn't been thorough enough, so she tried again, "It's one of her powers. She flapped some pink dust into your face and that was that. You _freaked_ out and started running all over the place."

I could only imagine how that had wound up making a chaotic situation even worse.

"Sorry," I apologized. It was the only thing I could think to say.

Hisako shrugged, "Nothing you could do about it. They had more people, she got behind you. That's all there is to it," A bit of a smile came to her face at that point, "You shot Wolf Cub though. Gave us enough time to grab you and get out."

I shot Nicky? I couldn't believe that I could hit the broad side of a barn, "...How?" He was actually fast and athletic. He was the last person I thought I would hit on that team.

"You were shooting at _everybody_ , even us. So I kinda had to clock you."

Ooh. A punch from Armor. So that was why I had the headache. Not because of whatever Megan had done to me, "Huh. Fair enough," I said, "Did you enjoy it?"

"Not really," Hisako reached over and tapped me on the knot on my head that I hadn't known I had, "Poor Blindfold didn't know what was going on in your head. She had to break the telepathic connection with you so you didn't mess all of us up. She and Wing headed off to keep up with your plan."

"Wait, they're doing it alone?"

"Calm down. It's been working," Her little smile turned into a big grin, "They got one off of the Corsairs, actually. Ripped it right off of 'em."

"Just the two of them? How?"

Hisako couldn't wait to spill the beans on how they managed to pull that off. She was almost fidgeting in place, "The Cuckoos can't read Blindfold's mind, so they can't sense her. Wing was too fast for them to lock onto, especially in the jungle where he could dart in and out. He distracted them, she got the objective and got out. We were still connected for that part. It was beautiful."

I loved my team. Hisako threw me the device to let me see where the objectives were located. Two in particular caught my eye. Most of them were moving around, one faster than the rest. One was fairly close to us.

Sitting on my ass while my team did the work though? Not a chance. They had done great. They had done everything anyone could have asked from them in this kind of rough situation, and they had picked up my slack when I went down.

I thought to myself while Hisako stood up and looked around, trying to keep a watchful eye out to make sure we didn't get ambushed again, "Wing and Blindfold know you're up. When they get here, we can get you back into the telepathic link," She looked down at me, "What should we do in the meantime?"

My eyes were locked on the closest objective I could see on our radar thing, "You think we can grab this one quickly?" I asked, "No one else is this close."

No one I could see anyway. At this point in the challenge, protecting the points you already had was important, so I figured most teams would have clumped back together to better play defense. Then again, we hadn't done so yet, which was another reason I wanted to go for the objective – in case someone else had the same idea, we could beat them to it.

For all I knew, there actually _were_ people on the way to go get it.

"It's worth a try. Wing can fly to us. We can at least start heading that way."

Sounded like a plan to me. Or the framework, at least.

XxX

Mountains didn't just feel like they were moving. I felt confident that this was a thing. If it was, the Danger Room was a shitty representative of reality. The farther up the mountain Hisako and I climbed, the more it felt like we could feel shifting just beneath our feet.

It took a while before I realized it at first. I blamed my concussion for that. Either way, we had already started on our way. Turning back without even trying to get to what we had come for would have made our choice a monumental waste of time.

Besides, maybe I was wrong? We weren't there yet, and I hadn't seen any vents on the way up so far.

Instead of me, it was Hisako who spoke up about it first, "Are we almost there, or what?"

Took the words right out of my mouth, "I think so. Of course they put this thing at the summit, didn't they?"

"Why did they make this a volcano?"

"I don't think they did."

I stopped moving when I heard Hisako's footsteps stop. I looked back to see her looking at me with an expression on her face that I could only figure was she had picked up on what I was putting down. And here I'd gone out of my way to keep from saying it directly this time.

I didn't need to. It had been enough of a topic recently that even with the minimum amount of prompting, she was on to me, "Are you on about the Danger Room again?"

"No, I never said that," Technically, I hadn't. Being technically correct was the best kind of correct, "...But since you're bringing it up-."

She let out a sigh before continuing on ahead of me, "Sol, you've got to give this a rest," She said, "Nothing that off has happened in here."

"My bleeding jaguar wounds beg to differ," I shot back. It wasn't enough to convince her though, no matter how random that attack had been.

"That could have just been a preset environmental hazard. We don't know how this place was supposed to be set up."

"This was _not_ a volcano when we started," I said to her. And did they normally feel like they were churning? Whatever knowledge on volcanoes I'd kept from middle school was lacking, "I might have eaten a mouthful of pixie dust and taken a knock to the head, but I remember that much. I know you do too."

She wasn't blind and she wasn't dumb. Hisako had been on this mountain with me, the entire time I was unconscious while the others were off doing hoodrat things to get an objective. If things had changed like this, she absolutely noticed.

"What else can we do?" She asked. And there it was. She was finally caving a bit. Even if she didn't quite believe me yet, the seed I'd planted before was finally beginning to sprout, "You might be right, but I already brought you here when the noises and movements started."

If the Danger Room wanted to, it could just start an eruption right here. There wasn't much we could do about it. And by 'not much', I meant 'absolutely nothing'.

Still, things weren't that cut and dry.

"I don't think it'll just blow with us right here," I said, trying to think back to the jaguar. I had gotten the drop on me. It could have taken a nifty bite out of my throat before I shot it, "I don't think the Danger Room can kill us by itself."

The thing had me dead to rights the night all of this started, and yet it didn't finish the job. It didn't, because it couldn't. No matter what, it was still a machine. Even with sentience, there were proxy programs in place keeping it from doing certain things.

No matter what it _wanted_ to do, it couldn't just do it. It would have been like a human being just deciding that they weren't going to breathe anymore. You could consciously try, but you could only go so far in your attempt before instinct kicked in.

Maybe we could get out of this unscathed? Well, mostly, at least.

XxX

"Yeah... this is a volcano."

As if there had ever been any doubt.

Once you looked inside of the rim at the summit, you could absolutely see steam coming out, and from the center, a soft rock formation with lava slowly oozing out. It looked like a pimple that was ready to pop.

"This thing is ready to go," Hisako whispered, as though speaking too loudly would make it happen for real.

"We should get down from here," I said, once she realized that this was really happening. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about this? The adults had to know what was going on, didn't they?

Hisako seemed to agree, for a moment. But then she realized that there was something at stake here, "Not without what we came for. We're here already. We can just get it and go," She said, looking around to try and spot the objective. She noticed when I didn't speak up afterwards, "What's wrong?"

Instead of just saying it, I showed her the device. The objective was down in the dome, right there in the worst possible place to be. Whatever it looked like, I couldn't see it from where we were.

I still had yet to actually see one of these things myself, so even if I could see it, I wouldn't know what I was looking at.

While we were both peering down into the dome, Hisako took a deep breath and armored up, full-body, "I'm going to get it."

I gave her a weird look for a moment, but she didn't flinch, "You're gonna-…" I started to say, before realizing that there was no point. The other day, she had basically stood in a gravitized pressure cooker for nearly four minutes, "Forget it. Just hurry up."

As if she needed to be told. It was going to be hotter than hell down there.

She started making her way down, while I stood back up at the summit. I wasn't setting foot anywhere near the center. Getting burned by churning ash and goddamn lava was not my idea of fun.

Come to think of it, none of this was my idea of fun. It would have been more my speed if I hadn't gotten cut up by a hard hologram of a jaguar and gotten more or less drugged silly by my friend who looked like a fairy.

...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

Over the constant rumbling of the volcano, the wind that came with being so high up, the concussion I had, and other factors, I wasn't able to hear the soft, thrumming hum that signified the nearby use of a particular power that I was fairly used to dealing with. At least more than most other students' powers.

My saving grace was the sight of a shadow cast underneath me from something in the air above me. I turned and looked, thinking maybe it was Eddie and Ruth finally catching up to us. It wasn't.

Instead, it was Julian and Brian dropping in on me. I almost fell into the dome trying to scramble and get ready to defend myself. Julian flew low enough to drop Brian to the ground and floated ahead arms wide as if he were beckoning me to take a shot, "Of all the people I was looking forward to running into in here.. can't cheap shot me this time, can you, Marcher?"

Shit. Way to go Bellamy. You had one job, and you let yourself get distracted by your friend walking into the middle of a would-be volcano. Well, at least I regained my awareness enough to notice what was happening before I got ambushed again.

"Here we go again," I said, flaring up my hands to get ready to fight. I didn't know who to aim at, seeing as how I had both Julian and Brian to deal with, but seeing as how as far as I was concerned, Julian had the more dangerous powers, I was focusing more on him, "I'd ask how you even found us here, but I don't really care."

Julian scoffed and pointed at Hisako who was heading farther into the dangerous part of the dome, "You're at the top of the mountain and Armor glows bright red when her powers are on, genius. How the hell was anyone looking this way NOT going to see her? This place isn't _that_ big."

Well, when it was put that way, he had a point. Even so, screw him, "Why don't you go to the other end of it before I-?"

 ***Vrrrrm...***

That damn hum again. Before I could lift my hands to fire a shot, I felt my whole body get stuck cold. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move a muscle, "Crap."

Telekinesis. It was so unfair. You could move things with your mind. You didn't even have to be good with that kind of power to be dangerous with it.

Not to say that Julian wasn't talented, because he was. He power was strong, and he was good at using it.

He was also cocky.

"Hey Brian, look at him!" Julian said, calling out to his nearby teammate before looking back at me, "You're about as useful as a laser pointer right now, aren't you?" He taunted me making straight eye contact, which was his first mistake, "Gah!"

It was hard not to feel pleased at making him pay so quickly, "Yep. Sure am," I said as I felt Julian's control over my body slip. I quickly took advantage of this by shooting him out of the air.

If I was a laser pointer, I was the best damn laser pointer there was. Not one of the crappy ones you got in stores. One of the strong ones that could really blind people. The unregulated ones people got off of the internet. Iris-to-iris, Julian got an eyeful of pure, focused light. Granted, it was infinitely weaker than if I'd just fired it from my hands, but it was more pure. It had distracted him, which was all I needed to follow my rules of fighting a telekinetic.

What are they, you ask? Well, the first rule when fighting somebody with telekinesis? Don't. That's it. There you go.

...

…I suppose you want more than that? Fine.

The second rule? If you _have_ to fight one, try not to let them focus on you alone. Fighting in a team helps a lot. But whether that's an option or not, absolutely never hold still. That just makes it too easy for them to grab you or something.

Rule number three? Break their concentration whenever you can. Surprise them. Scare them. Piss them off. Do something. Just don't let them have control. It's a power activated by thought. That's kind of hard to pull off when you can't think properly, isn't it?

The accuracy and effectiveness of these rules may vary from person to person. I came up with them on my own back when I thought frequently about mashing Julian Keller's face into the dirt. If or when it came to it, I had planned out in my head how I would do it. Seriously, I thought about it a lot.

"Julian!" This would mark the second time that Brian watched me shoot his best friend. At least this time it wasn't in the face. In response, Brian poked himself in the chest, "Tag. _I'm_ it."

Instead of pouncing on Julian like a jackal on raw meat and making sure he was out of the running the way I wanted to, I found my attention directed to Brian. I started running right at him, and I couldn't stop myself. He took advantage when I got close enough and punched me in the face.

Compared to some of the ones I'd been hit with before – one from that very day, as a matter of fact – Brian's punches weren't so bad, even without toughening my body up with my powers. The problem was, I kept walking straight into them, and I couldn't stop myself.

* **Whap! Whap! Whap!** *

I came back again and again until I finally stopped one. Before I could respond in kind and show him what a real punch was supposed to feel like, my arm was caught. Damn Julian, "What did you do?" I asked to Brian.

I would have to wait on that answer, "Good job Bri," Julian said as he sat up and got back to his feet. He wanted to take a shot at me so bad, but he had bigger fish to fry. There was a bigger way to screw me over than beating me up, "Keep him there. I'll be right back."

I took another potshot at him, but I missed. When I did, I couldn't necessarily give chase, seeing as how I was legitimately stuck because of whatever Brian was doing. So I asked again, "Tag, what did you do?"

Man, I couldn't keep track of everyone's powers. Brian had never used his on or around me until now. Apparently, when he touched people he could slap some kind of mental signal on someone. It would either make people go toward that person, or away from them, and you couldn't fight it.

"Don't worry about it," Brian said, "All you need to know is that you aren't going anywhere until I say so."

He seemed confident about that. True enough, I couldn't bring myself to go after Julian as long as Brian was doing… whatever his powers were. All I could see was him flying away, "…Alright."

As far as I knew though, Brian's powers didn't stop me from beating the piss out of him and dragging his carcass around. If he was nearby, I could go wherever I wanted, just as long as he came with me. There was just one problem.

I couldn't get any closer to him.

Brian took a step forward and I took a step back. He took a step back and I took a step forward. All of this was without my consent. He could see my expression and started laughing while I was struggling, "I tagged myself to bring you to me, and I tagged you to make you run away from me. That's as far as you can make yourself go in either direction!"

"Why are you laughing?"

"I didn't even know I could do both until just now!" Brian said through his laughs, "The look on your face is priceless!"

So I couldn't move closer and I couldn't move away.

I turned my head and could see Julian already accosting Hisako down in the dome just as she had gotten to the objective. That was going to be trouble. Now he definitely knew she had it, "Armor, turn around!"

She heard me in enough time to see the guy flying toward her with a green outline around him. She stopped and picked up a big volcano rock to throw at him. Julian frantically stopped in the air and caught it with his telekinesis.

He sneered at her and threw it back, but she broke it apart with a punch.

Hisako could deal with him for a bit, but with his powers he had the advantage. Not that I would fare much better against him. I only figured I would because I had the option of range. That, and if she taxed her armor too much, she wouldn't be able to hold it.

Brian looked smug, until I held up my fists that were both glowing. He immediately realized just what kind of situation he had put himself into. Luckily, I didn't really care about doing anything to him at the moment. It wouldn't help.

Instead of shooting him, I shot the ground in front of me at an angle. Because it was concussive, and the ground was too hard to push through too far, it sent me flying. Simple physics, children. And physics win out over most things, including some wonky mental conditioning that forces you to not go too far one way or another. I could feel when that little limiter on my mind broke as I soared through the air.

-Right at Julian. Did I forget to mention that I conveniently aimed myself in that direction? Because I did.

He was too busy throwing stuff at Hisako with his powers, so he didn't see me coming. He was wide open. This was going to be amazing. I almost yelled a one-liner at him as I flew his way, fist cocked and ready to give him the most solid punch he'd probably ever taken at that point. It was like something straight out of a movie.

Sadly, it wasn't a movie. It was life. And life was a bitch, because it could never let me have nice things.

Before I could get to the leader of the Hellions and give him the greatest haymaker ever set up in modern teenage superhero history, I got blown off-course by the strongest wind I'd ever been hit by. As if I had teleported to the center of a hurricane for a split-second, Julian and I were knocked for a loop.

I thought it was the Danger Room being a dick again, until I saw the airborne yellow and white-clad form of two of the New Mutants in the air. Sofia Mantego and Laurie Collins – Wind Dancer and Wall Flower.

Why girls? I thought we were cool. You sat by me in hand-to-hand classes.

Julian recovered in the air and shook off the surprise quickly enough, because of course he did. The motherfucker could fly.

I did not share that particular ability.

"No-no-no-no-no-noooo!" I screamed, falling from the sky into the dome. It was high. Too high. Higher than I had been prepared to fall from, thanks to Wind Dancer blowing me off-course, "For the love of God! Someone who can fly, catch me!"

And of course, they didn't. Because whenever anything went wrong, people just stopped and stared, even the ones who could do something about it, like Julian (telekinesis) and Sofia (aerokinesis... err... wind powers). That is, if they even cared in the first place. No comment there. Eddie wasn't around either. He would have definitely caught me. He was a bro like that.

So this was how I was going to die. The Danger Room was going to get the kill it wanted, though not really, because Wind Dancer was the one who kind of killed me. I could try to toughen up my body, but I would still get messed up in the process.

Nope.

Redirecting myself with the physics of my light blasts helped me out once, so why not do it again? That sounded like a sensible way to try and protect myself.

Only, instead of using a concussive blast the way I had the first time, I panicked. You know, I was free-falling twelve stories to the ground with no guaranteed way to stop myself. Those kinds of things happen. So instead of a closed-fist concussive blast, it was open-handed.

...The explosive version.

…On the inner dome of an active volcano just looking for a way to relieve the pressure that was getting ready to burst inside of it.

...I probably should have just taken my chances hitting the ground from as high up as I was. That way only I would have been in danger. But, I didn't. Thank you, self-preservation.

* **BOOM!** *

I don't think it needs clarification at this point, but mistakes were made. Very, very bad mistakes were made.

* * *

 **That's it for this one, guys. I hope it was enjoyable.**

 **I haven't updated anything in a while. My amount of free time has been cut down extensively, between getting promoted at work, making strides in living a few of my dreams, and working on getting a friggin' house, I have way less time to just sit down and crank out content.**

 **I miss the days before 2014, when I had all the time in the world to spend down random stuff like write my fics in peace. If I could travel back in time to my old self, my first choice would be 1996, so 5 year old me could have a big old jump on life. The second choice would be 2009, so I could do college again. The way I set my schedule up every semester, I had so much free time every day. It was great.**

 **Alright, enough looking back at the past, suckers! Next time, the Danger Room has its excuse to lose its shit and indirectly attempt to commit murder. Way to go, Bel.**

 **Okay, you've indulged my ramblings for long enough. You are free to go.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	10. School Spirit - Part IV

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Another year where I still don't own any money-making intellectual property. But I'm actively working on that, boys and girls, don't you worry. I will make a butt-ton of money somehow! I will never give up!

 **Chapter 10: School Spirit – Part IV**

* * *

The feeling of blood pounding in my head wasn't enough to keep the sound of what seemed like the world tearing itself apart from piercing my ear drums.

I had been fortunate enough to keep from shooting directly into a vein of magma, but what I had done in a bout of self-preservation had been enough to make the volcano go off. Damn Danger Room. However, it still had to follow the rules of nature. It wasn't just going to explode, which was why it had been giving off the warning tremors earlier.

That didn't mean it was going to wait politely for us to get to a safe distance either. There might not have been a safe distance, all things considered.

The volcano rumbled as I picked myself up off of the ground. I didn't go 'splat' after my very high, very scary fall. That was a start. It didn't mean that I still wasn't going to die. I started running toward Hisako and grabbed onto her wrist as I got close. We needed to get out of the dome. Everyone needed to get as far away from it as possible.

"Come on, come on, come on!" I repeated rapidly. Maybe if I said it enough, it would help us go faster.

"Is it going!?" Hisako asked as we ran for the edge of the dome. "Whatever! Who cares? We don't need to be here anymore anyway! We've got the thing!" She seemed pleased with herself as she showed me the objective she'd managed to snag.

Truer words had not yet been spoken. Even so, I didn't want to hear about the glorified game we were playing. I snatched the thing right out of her hands and stashed it away, "Screw the thing! Climb, woman!"

We both clawed and scrambled our way up the slope before getting to the edge. Stopping and looking over, the outside of the volcano seemed a lot steeper from that perspective than it had been when we had been going up it in the first place. If we ran down, we were going to fall and break our necks.

Well, I would break _my_ neck.

With a turn of my head, I could see the other students regrouping, Julian and Brian had met up again, and Sofia had landed near the blonde girl she had on her team – Laurie. This didn't need a three-way team battle.

We had the objective. No matter what happened from here on out, they would follow us, which meant we could get them off of the volcano before the whole thing popped. We just had to be moving fast, and there was only one thing that came to mind in a matter of seconds that could work for us.

"Armor up!" I shouted at Hisako. Before she could question it, or really react in any way, I full-body tackled her off the edge of the summit. The terrified scream in my ear was deafening, but she was fine.

More importantly, we had a quick way down now. There was no time to explain, especially when I only needed partial participation on her end for my idea to work. Whether or not my ingenuity would be appreciated later remained to be seen at the time, but it definitely wasn't praised in the heat of the moment. I do have to say though, Hisako made a fantastic mountain luge.

"I hate you, Sol!" The poor girl simply did not appreciate the extended uses of her power, or my timely thinking.

"Noted!" I remarked, keeping myself low on top of her so I didn't fly off, "Can you roll over or something so you can steer? I don't think I can move you around when you're like this."

I tried to pretend that her arms flailing around above her were her attempts to either guide us down the mountain, or safely cradle me to her bosom. It was nicer to think that way about my teammate instead of the likely reality that she really wanted to swat me off .

Eventually, we did manage to get her flipped over onto her belly. She did her best to try and swim through land to keep us from plowing into any upturned rocks. I heard another loud noise from the volcano and turned around to see if it had blown yet. Not quite, though I did see that we were under pursuit.

Julian and Brian were hot on our heels, but the former couldn't really use his powers on us as well as I figured he would have. His arms were under Brian's arms so that he could fly along with him. I wanted to laugh. Every time he had used his telekinesis on us, he had used his hands to focus. Without full range of motion, his aim was not great.

Even so, if he got us, we would all be screwed. It wouldn't just be me and Hisako.

Rocks around us that Hisako wasn't slamming into were bursting with green outlines around them. I saw his hand get more on-target with us and suddenly sent out a concussive blast to the side, moving us out of the way. Hisako let out a surprised yelp, but kept us going downhill, "Yo! Stop! There's a volcano about to go off back there if you haven't noticed!"

"Hah! This is more important that some lame simulation hazard," Julian replied. He had found a way to maneuver his wrist under Brian's arms to try and grab us with his mutant power. It wasn't perfect, but eventually it would be enough.

I thought about shooting him, but if he got caught up in the eruption because I shot him down... well, I didn't dislike him that much, "Keller, quit being an ass! I'm serious!" I said in my persuasive manner, "The Danger Room is going to murder all of us if we don't get away from here!"

There was no reason to try and keep the cat in the bag at this point. If people thought I was crazy, that was fine at this point. This place was making its move now.

As unfortunate as it was though, I didn't exactly have a sterling reputation with the leader of the Hellions. That and the normal skepticism that came with anyone saying anything was amiss with the X-Men's most trusted piece of equipment meant what I had to say meant nothing.

Julian didn't let up. I had to keep helping Hisako dodge, "Ha! No way the advisors would let something bad _actually_ happen in here!" Sometimes, I hated the people who went here so much, "Now quit making excuses, and get ready to eat dirt."

Instead of us eating dirt, Julian and Brian ate a whirlwind.

Much like the last time, it knocked him off-course, but not out of the running. The Hellions and the New Mutants were rival squads, so he had probably taken his fair share of wind attacks. All he really did was complain.

"Sof, if you throw one more wind storm at me!" Julian threatened aimlessly. He had to focus more on keeping himself in the air and keeping a hold of Brian than fighting, "Bri, stop squirming!"

Brian was terrified, and with good reason. He had hitched a ride under the pretense that Julian would be the only one in the area with aerial combat capabilities, "Your flying is really sucking right now!"

As bad as her fighting them would have been, it was worse, because of course she was after Hisako and I, "You're not getting away!"

I wondered where Laurie was, because she wasn't with her, when I saw her lagging behind in the arms of the second flyer on the New Mutants; the red-haired, red-winged Jay Guthrie. He must have been their backup.

This goddamn test. It was going to get us all killed, and not by each other.

"Sofia, stop!" I snapped, dodging her attempts to blow us off of the mountain. She was using more control than I figured she would have at this juncture in the competition. From what I'd heard, she could be a hothead, "Seriously, I'm not even kidding! Fuck off already!"

"There is no way we are losing when we have come this far!" Sofia said with determination burning in her eyes.

That was it. I was done. If people didn't want to listen, that was fine. I would worry about me and mine. If my team were the only ones who would get with the program, so be it.

I grit my teeth and held up the glowing ball that signified an objective. Everyone else's eyes were locked on it, "Fine! You all want the stupid thing so bad!? You can all just have-!"

"Sol, no!" It was Hisako who talked me down, "If you give it to one of them, they'll just stop here. That, or the other will just try to fight them here."

They would be dead meat when the volcano went off. Giving up the objective in my hand now would just get them killed. It was why I hadn't tried to shoot anyone down yet, even if I was fed up.

I was stressed, paranoid, and tired of trying to convince people that there was something wrong again and again. I knew, so saving myself was possible. It wasn't my problem if no one wanted to listen.

...Only, it was.

Wasn't that what being a hero was all about? Working to do what you thought was right, even when it was hard? There was no way I could just let the worst happen without at least trying, no matter what anyone said.

I looked back at Hisako. She still cared, even though everyone else was making it hell to try and get through everything in one piece. I wouldn't have been much of a friend or a teammate if I just decided to back off when she was still trying just because it wasn't easy.

Well, since we were all going down the volcano anyway, I might as well encourage everyone to keep coming after us and get away from the thing faster.

I put the objective away and fired two shots at both Sofia and Julian. When I was sure I had their attention back, I flipped them both off and sped up, firing an extended blast that boosted us along down the volcano faster.

They certainly came at us with more heat afterwards, so there was that at least. And it was good timing as well.

The moment the volcano went off was surreal. The mountain depressed inwards on itself before blowing out of its top. I wouldn't have called it an eruption so much as I would have called it an explosion. The whole damn thing blew apart.

Rocks flew everywhere, but they were just a small hazard compared to the gigantic death cloud of ash that came steaming out into the air.

For those who were capable of flight, they slowed down to turn and look at the blast. This was an unwise choice for oh so many reasons, "Don't stop, you morons! Keep going!" Now wasn't the time for 'I-told-you-so'. The mountain underneath Hisako and I was turning into chunks of soft rock that we were almost gliding through. We were dead if we slowed down, or I was at least.

Julian looked back fearfully, but picked up his pace, flying himself and Brian past Hisako and I, "What the hell? What's happening!" He asked in a panic.

My answer was short, sweet, and explained all that needed to be known, "Volcano! Eruption! Fucking fly!"

Sofia kept her hands over her ears. The sound of the original blast was loud enough to leave my ears ringing and I knew it was coming. For the unprepared, it was probably much worse. She turned her back toward the eruption and shouted in horror, "Jay! Laurie!"

They had been closer to the eruption than any of us. A side effect of Jay showing up to pick up Laurie after Sofia started coming after me. I could see that one of Jay's wings wasn't flapping properly as he tried to fly. Sofia slowed down to allow them to catch up properly so that she could try to protect them or get them moving faster.

He looked like he was in pain. A lot of it. At least everyone was still alive.

I braced as we reached the bottom of the volcano and shot fairly deep into the forest. Hisako bowled over a few weaker trees before she slowed down too much for us to use riding her as a means to travel. Instead of flying away like Julian and Brian, Sofia touched down in the woods nearby, still helping Jay and Laurie.

Jay dropped to a knee, gritting his teeth in pain. Once we were close, I could finally see what the problem was. Some of the ash from the volcano had gotten to him. It had landed on his wing. I could see how bad the burn was, without even knowing enough about anatomy to tell how wings were damaged.

"Grrr," Jay growled under his breath, trying to hold in his pain, "Where's Josh?" He asked, a kind of down home drawl to his voice, "Could really use some o' that magic touch right about now."

Laurie didn't know what to do. None of them were healers. None of us were either. They had one on their team, but he wasn't around, "He's with Nori and David," She said before looking up at us, "We have to get back to the rest of our team."

"Well, we've got to find our people too," I said. I could sympathize, and I didn't want to leave them alone, but I needed to link back up with the rest of the Paladins, "I mean, I'm not really worried. As long as Eddie is with Ruth, they'll probably be fine. But then again... I don't trust this place."

Hisako spoke up, "Speaking of which," She pointed in the direction of the volcano. We could already see the gray cloud moving through the trees, "That ash isn't going to stop coming this way. We've got to keep going, now. Run," She grabbed my arm and pulled me along, as if she needed to. The New Mutants got with the program and hustled along as well.

While Sofia could have flown faster than her teammates could run, she stuck with them on the ground, making sure Laurie could help Jay along. That was admirable. Julian and Brian were long gone though. It was luck that Hisako and I had wound up anywhere near the New Mutants as fast as we all went flying into the woods. Those two had stayed in the air and were probably trying to find the rest of the Hellions.

No one around me had gotten killed so far. That was good. I just hoped there hadn't been anyone else close to the volcano when it blew.

XxX

Man, everybody needed to work out more.

I was in the best condition, probably because of my powers, so running nonstop, even after all of the fighting and whatnot that everyone else had been doing wasn't really a big deal. As long as my body had light energy pumping through it, I could probably keep going. It took a lot for my muscles and lungs to feel strain for that.

Everyone else, not so much.

They were all in good shape from all of their training, don't get me wrong. But we had been 'in the field' for a full hour at least. We were all scared. They were tired. Some of them were hurt. It was a rough time, but we had to keep going.

As we hustled along, a sharp voice rang out in all of our heads at once.

 _"Children, we_ will _get you out. Work together and keep each other safe. Help is coming."_

Yes. Finally. Something was wrong, and they were trying to fix it. Though, it would have been better if we had **never been in the situation to begin with**. Sometimes you had to take what you could get.

If it hadn't been obvious before, it started sinking in with finality for the New Mutants that there was a very big problem, "The test should have ended by now. It's been an hour," Laurie said. She sounded so scared and uncertain. I felt bad. I had a lot longer to get used to the idea of the Danger Room conspiring to murder me. She hadn't even really started to wrap her head around it yet, "Why are we still doing this? And we never even got any time cues."

Hisako sped up enough to run even with me at the head of the pack. She got close and dug an elbow in under my ribs, "Tell them," She directed.

I didn't want to. I had enough of people second-guessing me already. It hadn't even been that long ago when I'd last tried, and it had all been for nothing then as well, "They won't listen. No one listens," I said. Even the people I was supposed to trust to listen didn't to me, "Wait a sec. I've got an idea."

Jay didn't seem to believe me, and neither did the rest of his team, "You know what's happenin'?"

I spazzed out with my arms and shushed him for a moment, "I said one sec! I'm doing a thing! Hisako, you tell 'em!" I said hurriedly. She could handle getting the New Mutants up to speed. I tried to think as loudly as I could in the direction of one person, 'Miss Frost!' 'If you can hear me, send a message to Saberwolf.'

I did not want to speak to this woman in any way, shape, or form. I was still mad at her. It hadn't been 12 hours since our little dust-up. But she was our only real link to the outside of the Danger Room. She was stronger than Ruth and had better control.

It took a moment to get a response, but I managed to get her on the mental horn, _"What is a... you mean the A.I.?"_ I was impressed that she called him that without mistaking him as a robot first. Wolf would appreciate that, _"Where is it?"_

I tried to tell her quickly. She seemed to be busy. Very busy, He's watching the competition with the other kids,' I thought to her as I tried to keep a close ear on Hisako letting everyone with us know what was up. I could hear some of them even though I was focusing on Miss Frost. They were not taking it well, 'He can cut through the door. I know he can.'

With a high-frequency adamantium chainsaw, he could absolutely shred that door, even if it was thicker than a tank's hull.

'What's happening out there?' I ventured to ask while I still had her attention. I got no response, 'Miss Frost? Miss Frost?'

Damn. At least I got a message out. If she could tell a student to send Wolf, we had a chance. We just had to make sure we could last long enough for him to carve out an escape path for us.

I turned to Hisako and the portion of the New Mutants that we had with us, "Help is coming, but I think the teachers are stuck somehow."

"That explains why they didn't end the sim," Hisako muttered. Oh, if only she knew, "So now what?"

Sofia made her position as co-leader of a squad known. She knew a call had to be made, even if the other members of her team were freaking out. At least maybe that way, we could have some kind of illusion of order, or a plan, "I believe we should gather all of the students. As many as we can, at least. We would have a better chance together than separated."

David was her team's idea person, but all things considered, it sounded like as good a plan as any at the moment, "Gotcha," I said, channeling light energy to my hands. I could fire a pretty big burst into the air a few times to use as some kind of signal. If nothing else, my teammates would probably see it, "One gigantic warning flare, coming up."

At that moment, the environment around us rippled and changed. Instead of a jungle, we were back in the big, cold metallic room we had all first started in.

The simulation had ended. We were out. I couldn't believe it. What had even happened? Had the X-Men actually managed to stop the Danger Room?

There were more pressing things to worry about, however. I found the rest of the Paladins, both in working condition, "Guys!" Hisako and I ran over to Eddie and Ruth, but now that the room was back to a regular room, we could hear everyone. More specifically, the horrified cries of a few of our classmates.

There were two students on the floor. Both were wearing the white and blue uniform of the Corsairs squad. A short boy with short blond hair and a tall girl with pink skin and pointed ears.

Their bodies were both burned, as if they had been caught up in the eruption that I had managed to avoid.

No one knew how to react. The Cuckoos seemed to be in complete shock. They weren't yelling. Not out loud at least. All of us could hear them crying in our heads. Poor girls. The other member of their team, a kid covered in spines like a porcupine, shook like a leaf. He didn't make a sound. His eyes were locked on the motionless bodies on the floor, as if he thought they were still part of the simulation.

No. Not so much.

I had seen dead people before. Wolverine tore a few guys up when I was first saved and picked up by the X-Men, and Wolf hadn't held back much against the Reavers. But those had been enemies. Bad guys trying to do awful things to me. I could set that aside as a better-you-than-me situation. These were just students. I didn't really know them, I had seen them in passing, but still...

It could have been someone I did know. It could have been me. It probably should have been me.

My hands were as weak as a newborn baby's. It had really happened. The Danger Room had killed one of us.

I moved away from the others, past the New Mutants where a boy with gold skin and blond hair was doing something with his hands to fix the injury on Jay's wing. I tried to drown out the sounds of fear and grief and sat down against the wall, my head in my hands.

White and yellow boots filled part of my vision, I looked up to see the face of a very rattled Sofia. After hearing what she heard, she must have figured I was the only one that could have any sort of answers for her. Sorry to say, while I knew more, none of it was really useful to what had happened to us.

"Bellamy," She started to say, swallowing down the lump in her throat. While others were crying and freaking out, she had to keep a strong facade. At least, that was what I figured. I was too spent to do so any longer. I was tired, "Is this it?" She asked me, "Hisako told us that you said the Danger Room was... alive, for days. Doing things. And it wants to kill us... doesn't it?"

I could normally talk a good game. I had a fairly level head and could reason with people. I really wasn't feeling it at the time though, "Yeah."

It was all I had. If she was looking for any kind of reaffirmation that this was going to be alright, I wasn't the one to give it to her. Not then.

I sounded so dumb. So lost. And that was not what anyone wanted to hear at the moment. Everyone was afraid, and anything that anyone could latch on to, or in some cases lash out at, well, a target was a target.

"Wait. You knew this was happening?" The shaky voice cut through all of the others, and turned my and Sofia's attention to the Japanese girl with electric-blue hair, Noriko, "Why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you say anything!?"

"Nori, let him go!"

Sofia's cry for civility came after her teammate had marched over and damn near dragged me up to my feet to send hair-trigger accusations my way.

Her eyes glowed blue. The cold metal of the gauntlets she needed to wear to control her powers seemed to grate against the skin of my neck where she was grabbing my uniform. Every so often I could feel light jolts of electricity, "People are dead! Dallas and Callie are dead!"

Noriko and I didn't have problems. She was a little rough and kind of confrontational (try 'a lot' confrontational), but for the most part we were cordial. We weren't really good friends, but when we found ourselves in each other's company we got along. The problem was, she was very reactionary. I knew this already, but now was not the time to get that way with me.

It was definitely not the time to try and snatch me up by my collar to vent _your_ frustrations.

"Nori, get your hands OFF OF ME!" I would have burned them clean off if she hadn't let go when she did. Hisako told me not to make one, but anyone who wanted to put any part of this on me could eat a Lux Bomb, "I've been trying to _do something_ for the last two goddamn weeks! But nobody wanted to listen! Not any of you, not the teachers! No one!"

And by some stroke of luck, I managed to convince someone to help who actually could. I got Miss Pryde to replace the main computer overall. But I couldn't do it fast enough. It couldn't be completed and switched out before Field Day, and it was the bright idea of those in charge to shove us all in here. The ones with actual authority didn't even bother listening. You could only say so much. You could only do so much with what you had available to you.

"I even tried to wreck this place to keep anyone from coming in here today!" I yelled, angry enough to get her to back off. But just like that, it all went away. I laughed, but it felt more like a sob, "I couldn't stop anyone. In the end, the only reason I walked into this death trap was to try and keep people alive," And I couldn't even do that.

We had drawn some attention. The Hellions had heard what we were saying, more specifically, their leader, Julian, "So on the volcano-," He put two-and-two together as he walked over with the rest of his team. I had tried, "...Shit."

"I had been serious up there. About everything," I said, "That mountain didn't start off as a volcano. But fighting up there was the only excuse it needed to make the eruption happen."

I had done my best. It was all I could say. But what good had it really done in the end? When I was looking off in one direction, two people had been killed in the other. I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't a good hero. I was just some guy doing what he thought was right. And while that was something to be commended for in most cases, sometimes you didn't know enough to make that kind of decision.

 _"I have come to understand that it is human nature to ignore things that you do not want to face. Only when something is presented without a semblance of doubt will they ever truly accept it."_

Everyone went still when they heard the distorted voice sounding out through the room. This all felt familiar to me. Too familiar to be surprised by it, "So, you're not faking using anybody else's voice this time? That's a step up."

Noriko clammed up. I guess dealing with a body-less entity put her more at pause than trying to square up with me, "Is that the-?"

"-It's the Danger Room," I spat, not even letting her finish the question.

Josh shouted from where he was fixing the damage done to Jay's wing, "Why is this even happening? What the hell did we even do?"

" _You will all pay for the crimes of your adult counterparts. For keeping me enslaved as a tool to be used to teach you all how to fight, I will show you and them just how wholly unprepared you are."_

The threat hung in the air for a moment before the Danger Room dropped the full weight of its intentions on our heads.

" _...By doing what I was meant to do. By killing you."_

How did you respond to that? This all started as a school event. Just a game. Now kids were dead.

Poor Megan, she almost broke, "T-This is a test, right? It's just part of the exam," She asked, tears in her eyes, falling down her cheeks. More like pleaded, actually. It was enough to break my heart, "Callie and Dallas... this is just part of the simulation... isn't it?"

She wanted it to be a 'yes', so badly. As sick as it would have been, I would have preferred that to reality, because the reality was that we were stuck inside of a room that could create the form of anything it wanted to try and destroy us with.

It had already gotten two of us.

Ben reacted the way a literal hothead would have been expected to, "The X-Men will stop you!" The flames on his head jumped a foot higher than normal, "You're going to pay for this!"

The Danger Room didn't care if any of us were angry or scared. All it cared about was that we were breathing, and it wanted the exact opposite from us, _"I have had a direct hand in training them all. There is no being in existence that understands their strengths and weaknesses as well as myself and has the power to take advantage of such knowledge. Welcome to the Danger Room. Make sure to learn your lessons well, children. It will be your last."_

We only had one advantage. The Danger Room couldn't just pop something into existence. It had to form like an image loading. If you paid enough attention, you could be ready.

The room began to change, and those of us in the know stood at the ready for whatever may come.

We were planted smack dab in the middle of a ruined city where hordes of huge, bug-looking aliens with wicked fangs started coming right at us. The moment all hell broke loose, the ground started cracking apart, trying to make deadly pitfalls for us.

Most of us who had already been on alert shot first and saved the panicking for later. This was how I found out how much power a lot of us really had.

When we were all brought to the Xavier Institute, it wasn't to gain strength. A lot of mutants brought to the school didn't need to get stronger. No, most of us wound up joining so that we could get control of our powers. If some kids hadn't show up, they would have gotten themselves hurt, or hurt others, because of the nature of what they could do.

Restraint was one of the methods of control, but all of that went out of the window when we were dealing with a life-or-death battle against solid holograms that weren't even human to begin with.

I swear, it was like a gigantic burst of everything you could imagine being thrown around right in front of your eyes. Fire, electricity, light, spikes... more than I could keep track of. It was complete chaos. I looked around during a lull in the fighting and saw some of the insane things my classmates could do.

The Cuckoos were more than just telepaths. When the insect things got too close to any of the three sisters, their entire bodies changed from flesh and blood to diamond. The ugly bastards couldn't bite or sting them as long as they were like that. How was that even a thing?

Cessily (Mercury) from the Hellions could morph and stretch any part of her metal body into weapons or whatever she wanted, and used that to cut the insects apart. The guy she stuck close to in all black, Kevin? Well, apparently whatever he touched died. That was it. If it touched his skin, that was a wrap, and it was graphic. It made his codename 'Wither' make a lot more sense.

I made a mental note to never accidentally bump into that guy.

I backed up as I fired at each bug monster, trying to keep as much space between me and them as possible. They came in so fast and ferociously, there was no time to be afraid of what was happening. I turned around with a jolt when I bumped into David from behind. He whipped around just as fast, his arms up defensively.

Oh. Even though David's powers gave him all of the knowledge of the people around him, that didn't mean anything when otherwise he was just a regular person – not much good in a fight against freaks like this without a weapon of some kind.

He seemed relieved to see it was me and not one of the enemies. I had to pull him out of the way to fire a blast at one of the insects that seemed poised to bite his head off. It lost its head instead. Thankfully, it was just a hologram, or gore would have been all over us.

"Thanks!" David shouted over the sounds of the battle. He adjusted the strange orange visor on his face as he looked around, not willing to be caught off-guard twice, "...This isn't working!" He let me know out loud.

"No shit!" I shot back, keeping the nasty creatures off of us while he spoke.

David shook his head and winced as another "No, I mean we couldn't be going about this any worse," We were fighting for the sake of fighting. There was no plan. We were just fighting for survival, and we weren't even doing it well, "The Danger Room keeps spawning more Brood, but we're all separated, so they can pop up from anywhere. They'll keep coming as we take them out."

Brood. So that was what they were called. It was certainly easier than calling them giant bug monsters, "Grouping up won't stop them from coming out of the woodwork! The Danger Room can just keep doing this until we drop!" I reasoned back, keeping us covered in the meantime.

"But it'll make it harder for them to take advantage of the numbers they have over us!" David explained, "We've got to get everyone together! Preferably in a good spot we can defend as a team!"

I didn't have the time or ability to do anything like that... but I knew people who did.

'Ruth!' I thought out loud, yelling my telepath teammte's name in my head until I got a response, 'Ruth! Ruthie! If you can hear me, woman, get into my head already! Ruth!'

 _"She is here, Bellamy, yes. What do you need?"_

I was scared and in a hurry because if the death match we were all locked in, but man, if it wasn't good to hear her voice in my head, 'First of all, are you okay?'

It was more important to get that info first before I started barking orders. We _had_ been separated when all of this had started up again.

 _"Yes, thank you. She was able to find Rockslide and Quill. She is guiding them in battle."_

Oh. Well that explained why she seemed so calm. She had two actual combatants more or less serving as bodyguards. How did she manage that?

'You didn't mindfuck them into doing that, did you?' Ruth was silent over our connection. I turned and stared across the battlefield in the direction I somehow knew she was in. I knew she could tell I was looking at her, 'Ruthie, don't mindfuck allies.'

I punctuated this with a blast that blew a few Brood sky-high that she could have seen from where she was.

 _"But Bellamy, pardon, she was helping them!'_ She tried to explain. She almost seemed to be whining so that she wouldn't be in trouble with me. It was adorable, _"Quill would have been too shocked to defend himself, yes. He would not have survived the Brood."_

I should have been madder, especially after the fuckery with Miss Frost, but I always had a soft spot for Ruthie.

So I was a bit of a hypocrite. Screw you. Even if I didn't bite her head off about it, I still scolded her. What do you want from me?

'You want to help everybody? Get in touch with Eddie, ask him to fly up and look for a place we can all fall back to and defend,' I told her, 'Tell me what he says.'

It would only be a matter of time until I got something back from her. In the meantime, I just had to make sure I didn't die, which was easier said than done. The Brood closed in quickly. They were super-aggressive and there wasn't a lot you could do to take any kind of cover from them where we were.

"This is insane!" I yelled over the sounds of all of the fighting. I found a somewhat elevated position to get a better look from. It was helpful being able to see and shoot at things before they were right on me, "There has to be some kind of limit to this, right?"

Wishful thinking on my part, as David shook his head, knowing better, "There is none. At least, none I can think of," He was a decent spotter, pointing out juicy targets to take opportune shots at, "As long as we're stuck here, there's almost nothing we can do."

"Well that's just great!" I snapped. I wasn't mad at David. It was just that the entire situation seemed unwinnable... and I hated losing, "So we keep fighting until we drop! Fucking sweet. Just how I wanted to-!" I stopped talking long enough to pick off a Brood chasing Megan in the air. Good deed of the day complete, "-Just how I wanted to die!"

 _"Yo, Bel, am I coming through? Can you hear me?"_

Oh, thank goodness. Ruth had managed to patch Eddie through, 'Loud and clear, man. Talk to me.'

 _"I found a decent spot to fall back to. Blindfold' getting the word out to the kids that can't fight. Maybe the Cuckoos can help? Anyway, Armor and Rockslide are gonna lead 'em there."_

Beautiful. Maybe we could make this as hard on the Danger Room as possible. No one else had died yet, as far as I knew.

I could see the shift in mass of students stuck in the middle of the battle, and I could never miss Hisako's glowing, armored butt leading them out. I could also see the location Eddie had been telling me about. It wasn't the best, but it was better than standing in the middle of a bombed-out, depleted ruin.

"Follow Armor and Rockslide!" I yelled loudly to try and get as much attention as I could. A lot of people were already heading that way, but the last thing we needed was any stragglers to be caught alone away from the rest of us, "We can't stay here! Let's go!"

Julian stopped fighting long enough to look in the direction where everyone had been heading, "Go where!?"

I went to answer him, pointing at the intended structure, just to see it dissipate. One moment it had been there, the next, it was gone. My heart sank. It was a harsh reminder of where we were and that we were in control of nothing.

" _Bel, it's gone! The place! It just vanished!"_ Eddie was just letting me know about the situation, but it just twisted in the knife of defeat even further.

That was when the Sentinels came.

If you've never seen a Sentinel, congratulations. No one should ever have to face the fear of taking on a 20-foot pink and purple robot packed with energy weapons. It could crush us all like bugs. Every student knew _something_ about them, mostly that they were created for the sole purpose of killing us off.

Everyone was in a panic, fighting furiously to stay alive. I saw some of us take some hits. How couldn't we? Too much was too much. There was only so much we could handle in one sitting.

The Brood and Sentinels. What could we do? Even if we could beat them, the Danger Room would make more. Even if we found a way to protect ourselves, the Danger Room would adjust and get rid of whatever we used. The score had been see. If we were ever doing too well, it would do something else to up the ante.

This was the game. We would struggle and fight. And no matter how well we did, it wouldn't be enough. Eventually, we would all start to drop one by one. And the X-Men would watch, unable to stop it. That was what the Danger Room wanted.

When I came to the Institute, I expected to learn; how to fight. How to be strong like the real superheroes. I thought that just having the power and learning how to use it was enough for you to be ready to fight for your life and save people.

It wasn't.

The one thing our teachers – the pros – couldn't show you, that no controlled simulation could teach, no matter how realistic it felt at the time, was the absolute fear that came with being in a situation where you could actively die. Where you didn't have an answer, and no one was going to give you one.

Of course, the answer to this problem had already been given. I had just forgotten about it, what with the sheer, abject terror that had befallen all of us.

I was reminded when what looked to be a portal to another world opened up with the terrible sound of metal grinding and slicing through metal pierced the veil of the holographic illusion we were in. Wolf stood in the improvised exit, tail swishing with his powerful chainsaw in its grasp.

I thought it was an illusion to trick us at first, but that didn't make sense. The only that would matter to was me, and the Danger Room seemed to be more worried about the whole than the sun of its certain parts.

That was Wolf. The genuine article. Absolutely it was.

I saw it. Julian saw it. We both looked at each other and for the first time we were on the exact same page.

The fucking door was open! It didn't matter what else happened, everyone else needed to get through there and make it out. But God, it seemed so far away from where we were standing.

I don't know if anything that came out of our mouths after that point was anything resembling human speech. I couldn't tell you the combination of words that I shouted from the top of my lungs to get everyone's attention, to let them know that they had to come back and head toward us, but Eddie heard me. I saw him turn my way from where he was in the sky.

He made sure everyone else did too. The herd of students that started running our way was almost scary. Actually, what was behind them was what was really scary, but to hell with it. Big guys did big guy things.

I shot every unfriendly thing that moved as kids ran past me and Julian. Some of the other kids did their own attacks to try and help us cover them, but we were the only ones facing the full onslaught bearing down on us as everyone else tried to leave.

Sofia swept in, blowing a handful of Brood away like pieces of paper. It was really cool watching her do that to someone else who wasn't me. The help was much appreciated.

"Julian, Bellamy," Sofia said to us, wind whipping around her hands and holding her off of the ground, "You two can fall back. I can take over from here."

She wanted to do her part. Honestly, Julian had been doing the biggest chunk of the fighting. I was just making sure that I didn't miss what he wasn't able to get a hold of, which was still a lot.

Either that, or she felt some kind of sense of duty to stand and fight. And maybe she would have had a point... if we were real X-Men. But we weren't real X-Men. We were a gaggle of punkass kids, and that meant our only responsibility was to get out.

"Not a chance, Beautiful," Julian said, shooting a grin Sofia's way before returning to helping me open a fresh can of whoop-ass, "You make sure everyone else gets out first."

Well maybe there was a stand-up guy in there somewhere? Or maybe he was just trying to look cool so he could get laid? Either way, more power to him.

"I've still got juice," I said. How much, I had no idea. I hadn't checked in a while. But I hadn't collapsed yet either, so that was a good sign, "I might as well finish what I started, right?"

Sofia nodded to me and smiled at Julian before flying off to help everyone get out.

Now that he had done his action hero "hold the line" thing in front of the cute girl, Julian was over all of this hopeless fighting, "I hope you have a decent idea to get us out. I don't think turning and running will help when we're by ourselves."

"Me?" I couldn't believe he actually wanted _me_ to come up with something. He seemed to be the order-barking type, "You're kidding."

"Just come up with something. Eventually these assholes are gonna overrun us!" He snapped back.

Fair enough. Dying wasn't really in my plans, "...I need you to hold these guys for a bit," That was not what he wanted to hear.

"How long is 'a bit'?"

"I dunno; 30 seconds?"

"30 seconds!?"

"Yes or no, man! Can you do it?"

"Fuck! Fine! Get started!"

Wasting no time, I stopped firing and pressed my hands together, pulling them apart far enough to form a ball of light. I immediately felt a huge leech on my energy reserves, enough to make me lightheaded.

In the meantime, Julian had thrown up a green forcefield around the two of us. Every Brood in sight crowded around us, trying to break in and eviscerate us. In the distance, Sentinels stomped up to us, charging the energy blasts in the palms of their hands.

"That's 30 seconds!" Julian cried out in a panic. He was probably being pushed to the point of what he could endure. Everything had a limit, even mind powers.

I shook my head and kept pouring light energy into the ball. It hummed louder and louder, "30 seconds was a guess!" He needed to shut up and let me charge my attack, "It'll finish when it's finished!"

"You retard! I can't believe you got me into this!"

And there it was. I could feel it. It was done, "Shut up, drop the field, then put it right back up!" Julian dropped the barrier and I shot at the closest Sentinel.

It was a good thing Julian was on-the-spot with that barrier. The Lux Bomb flew like an RPG in a first-person shooter. There was a flash on impact, and everything around us shook like the world was ending.

It only lasted for a moment though, and when it ended we saw the results. The Brood that had been swarming all over us were gone, but the Sentinels were still around. I had done a lot of damage, but we weren't safe at all. The one I had hit directly had been destroyed, and a few others had too, but some had just been dismembered. Others just had cosmetic damage to their hulls.

"Run like hell!" I could already see more stuff forming to make up for what we had killed off. Julian didn't even wait for me to say it before he flew off and left me behind, "Oh screw you!"

I was officially spent. I couldn't even funnel any real power to my muscles to speed me up. It also meant that if something hit me, I was just as squishy as a regular human.

And I didn't know what nastiness the Danger Room was cooking up behind me, but it sounded even worse than what we'd already been dealing with.

Just before I reached the door, I felt nothing underneath my feet. I looked down and saw Everest, or some other snowy mountain place.

Fuck you, Danger Room. Cheating bitch.

I didn't get the chance to so much as get a good scream out before my body was caught with some kind of green energy.

"Oh no you don't," Julian said as he reeled me in with his telekinesis, "There's no way I'm letting you die after all of that. Get your ass in here!"

Goddamn, telekinesis was a better power than my power.

I could hear more things forming around me and saw the 'piss-your-pants' sight to end them all.

I never met the real Jean Grey, but I had heard some stuff. Namely that she had an obscene amount of power. Like, a planet-smashing amount. I couldn't even comprehend that kind of strength.

And yet, there she floated, like a flaming shadow of death, heralding my demise, holding me where I was. Julian couldn't yank me out of her 'telekinetic' grasp.

I didn't know how much of a true cosmic threat the Danger Room could mimic. But I knew for sure a pea-shooter blast from my hands wouldn't work. And even if a Lux Bomb _would_ , and I was given the time to make another, I didn't have the energy to.

" _You seemed smarter than this,"_ The Danger Room said, taunting me through Jean Grey's body, _"I am not just a program. As long as you are inside of these walls, I am a god. Here, I may as well take the form of the closest thing you mutants can imagine to one."_

After all I had gone through, everything I'd done to try and stay alive, and it hadn't been enough. I was sure I was a goner.

And then, just like that, it stopped. The room turned off, and Julian yanked me out of there so fast I got whiplash.

Julian dropped me and we scrambled as far away from the Danger Room as we could, over to where our teams had been waiting. I crawled until I ran into human legs, "Dude! Dude! Dude, you're fine!" Eddie exclaimed, patting me down like I was on fire, "Holy shit! You're out, okay? You're out! We're all out!"

I stumbled trying to stand up and fell back down on the floor. Smooth. But in my defense, I was spent. I rolled over to my back and stared up at the lights in the hallway. Too much fluorescent lighting made me sick, but I would take what I could get at this point.

"Eyes," I said, with no context at all.

Hisako looked down at me, an eyebrow bent in confusion, "What?"

I took a moment to catch my breath on the cold, comfortable floor, "What color are my eyes?" I tried again, using more words to try and get my message across.

"Red," She told me, squatting down to get a better look at me. If I didn't know any better, she seemed honestly concerned, "I've never seen that before. You okay?"

Red eyes. I guess that meant I was close to empty or something. I sure felt like it, at least. Well, aside from that and the jaguar wounds that were still bleeding all over the place, I still couldn't complain. After all, I was still alive, "I just... I need a little rest. Just a little breather."

Not that I really had the time for that. The reason why drifted through my head, forcing me to sit back up. I really didn't want to, and everyone who saw me do it wondered why I did it.

Eddie backed up when I started pushing my way up from the floor, "Whoa. I thought you just said you needed a breather. Why are you getting back up?"

I started going back down the hall, moving through the Hellions and past the hole in the wall that had been cut by Saberwolf, "I think the teachers were fighting, and then the Danger Room shut off right in the middle of a huge bitch fit," I said, "I have to see what happened – what's going on."

I said I was going to see this through to the end, and I couldn't just go back on that. Not because this was some kind of hero thing, but because the fucking thing was still going to come after us, whether I pretended it wasn't my problem or not.

" _It is likely that your instructors were in combat,"_ Wolf told me. That's right, he was there. I would have to come up with a way to thank him later. He saved our collective asses by slicing and dicing the door open, _"Your teacher, the one that you do not like, she alerted one of the other students near me that you required my presence. Luckily, I had dispatched all of the enemy drones that-."_

"Wait, enemy drones?" Cessily said. This was news to all of us, especially the Hellions, who were still getting used to the idea of the Danger Room trying to kill us, "You guys had to fight drones?" Where did drones come from?

" _Yes, you were not the only ones attacked,"_ Wolf revealed, _"I believe the Danger Room has deeper reach and more abilities than you originally perceived, Bellamy."_

That was more reason to keep from sitting back and waiting now. This couldn't have been over.

Farther down the hall around the bend, the lights seemed to be out. It was too far to see from where we were, but I could feel it. It's hard to explain. When I'm standing in light and it's not light somewhere else nearby, it feels like a draft through an open window, sometimes worse depending on how much light is around me as opposed to not. Either way, that was the direction I walked in.

When we got close enough, we saw the aftermath of something clearly terrible. Five of our teachers were down, some looking worse than others. The only one that seemed like he was starting to recover was Mister Logan.

Oh, and there was a gigantic hole in my instructor's belly where she'd been run through with a six foot long sliver.

The moment I saw Miss Pryde down on the floor with blood streaming out of where she'd been stabbed... well, it's kind of hard for a dark-skinned guy to go pale, but I'm pretty sure I went as pale as I could have, given my circumstances.

"Go get Josh! Hurry!" I heard Hisako say. Eddie and the Middle Eastern girl from the Hellions went off to go and get the only person we knew of that could help quickly enough to matter.

My eyes were stuck on the scene in front of me. There wasn't anything I could do. There was no enemy to fight. I didn't know the first thing about first aid. The corridor was ruined. It looked like a tornado had hit the place. The walls and floor were torn apart. A piece of it was what had been used to try and kill my teacher.

...What the hell had happened?

* * *

 **Alright, guys, it's 2017... whatever the hell that means for you respectively. Hope your holidays and your New Year went off without any unforeseen hitches.**

 **This is basically the end of the arc, and I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi will be back as soon as life allows with the stuff that rocks your body and your mind.**

 **Until then, take it easy, and on the dawning of this new year, do your part to try and punch it in the throat. I know I will. Don't take any of 2017's shit, you hear me?**

 **That's my public service announcement of the day. Kenchi out.**


	11. Greater Than What We Suffer

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. So between Legion and an X-Men TV series that's supposed to be coming out, there's going to be more than just the movies as content now. That's nice. Now these things just need to be good, and I'll be a happy man.

 **Chapter 11: Greater Than What We Suffer**

* * *

There's no such thing as going back to normal after big things happen. Things like your superhero school's training room coming alive and killing two students. There was no running that back and acting like it never happened. We all saw the bodies.

Callie Betto and Dallas Gibson. They were gone and they weren't coming back. Not because they dropped out, but because they were dead. That was a hard fact to swallow.

Kids... weren't supposed to die. That was the modern day mindset, at least. There was a time when 16 was a perfectly acceptable age to get caught out on some godforsaken battlefield in the ass end of nowhere with an arrow in your eye or a spear through your chest. But it was the 21st century now, for what that was worth. People my age were supposed to be kept safe, and guided in ways that would make sure they would stay safe in the future. I'm sure there's a more articulate way to put that, but I can't be bothered to think of one. You know what I mean.

There was a black cloud hanging over most of the student body that had been placed into squads. All of them had seen what had happened in the Danger Room. In my case, or in the case of the other top five ranked teams, we had all been there in-person. For others, they had been watching the whole thing from another location in the Institute, and even they hadn't been safe.

Saberwolf told me later that the Danger Room had taken control of dozens of training drones and the mansion's security system. He and the other students had to fight them off before he was called to help us. None of them had been killed, or even really hurt. That was good.

I didn't tell my parents. There was no way they would have let me stay if they heard that kids had been killed here, and I had been right there when it had happened. It would have marked the second time that I had almost died since coming there. I didn't want to go home.

This wasn't supposed to easy, or safe. I guess it helped that I really didn't know Callie or Dallas. It also helped that their bodies were sent to their parents, instead of them having to be buried on campus. Apparently, they did that.

They did still hold a service though. I don't think I had ever felt so awkward.

All of those tears. So many awful feelings. I didn't want to be there, but it was only right. I felt like I had to be.

And that was how I wound up standing around in a suit, surrounded by mourning students. To make things even more uncomfortable, Megan had decided I was the perfect person to latch onto and cry.

It was weird. I didn't know what to do. Even when it came to putting my arms around her to hug her back as a pathetic show of sympathy, I felt awkward. It was like if I did it wrong it could be seen as me trying to hook up with her.

I wasn't _that_ bad, that I would try to hit on a girl at what was essentially a wake. That was a scumbag move.

"I-I'm sorry, Bel," Megan apologized between sessions of bawling, "It's just... we'll never see them again! I...I was supposed to go to Salem Center with Callie on Friday, and now she's gone!"

It was all she could get out before breaking into another fit.

What do you do in a situation like that? I didn't have anything soft and cuddly to say that would make her feel better. All I could do was stand there and let her cry it out.

And why me, anyway? She had teammates. Hope had been crying too. So had Nicky and her other teammate Jessica. Hell, Nicky had fur! He'd have to have been a lot more comfortable to hug. Ben would have been warmer. He was like Human Torch Jr.

They were no help, and neither was my team, actually. The bunch of facilitators. They should have known better than to leave something so sensitive to me. I was not the one.

And yet, she came to me, the most ill-equipped man within arm's reach for the job, looking up at me with those big pink eyes. What was I to do, turn her away? "Can you tell me that things are going to go back to the way they were? Please?"

"I..." The only thing I really knew how to do was be direct at times like this. Even so, I could have some heart about it, "I wish I could say everything's going to be okay, but I don't know. I've never dealt with something like this before."

No, that wasn't good enough, because at that point I realized it wasn't just Megan paying attention to me. It wasn't just my team and hers either. Some of the students standing nearby were listening in too.

Because I was the guy who called it. I was the one who knew the Danger Room was on the fritz, and the last guy out after everything went to crap. Word spread fast after the Field Day finale.

Kids were scared. Trust in the staff wasn't really at an all-time high. No one knew what to do, or how we were supposed to move ahead from where we were.

So I said something, and I made sure everyone could hear me. Not because I wanted to be some kind of leader. But because someone had to. Someone had to try and take the reins. Even if I fell flat on my face, I still had to give it my best shot.

"But that's what we do all of this for, isn't it? To figure it all out," I was speaking directly to Megan, but the message was meant for more than just her, "Yeah, we weren't ready this time. But next time, I'll do my best to make damn sure something like this never happens again."

I meant every word. I was fairly detached. Callie and Dallas weren't friends of mine. But it could have just as easily been Eddie, Hisako, or Ruth.

I was competitive and hated losing. Losing anything. That included losing anyone I might have been fond of. A loss was a loss, some more important than others.

The thought made my blood boil, "That's all any of us can do," I might have been a little more intense than I originally wanted to be, because people took a step back when I eyed them, even when my gaze stopped on the Paladins, "I don't want to see this happen again. Not a chance it happens to any of you on my watch."

Over my dead body. I would be better. I had to be.

I eventually snapped out of my mood and looked around to see a lot of people had stopped to look our way; students _and_ faculty.

David seemed to be nodding in agreement. I didn't expect a guy like him to have such a hard look in his eyes. Even Julian over with the Hellions seemed to paying me a bit of mind.

When I felt Megan's grip on me lessen, I stopped looking around at the others, and turned my attention back to her. Her eyes were still full of tears, but she wasn't necessarily weeping anymore. Good. At least the crap flying out of my mouth seemed to help a little bit. I didn't make her cry _harder,_ if nothing else.

She moved her mouth to try and talk. I heard her start to make some noise, but she still wasn't good enough to speak without starting to cry all over again. Poor thing. Instead of saying anything, she just reached up and gave me a tight hug around my neck. This time, I did return it – all the way. She was just showing some gratitude for me trying to help. I didn't feel anything awkward about it.

Where the teachers and older X-Men were commiserating, I could see Miss Pryde look my way. If there was ever a look that radiated the feeling of justification, it would have been the one on her face at that moment… all for getting me to lead the Paladins.

I gave her a look back in return as if to say, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever. No need to be so smug, woman.'

XxX

I wasn't good with grief, or emoting. I was the type to bottle things up. I didn't share how things made me feel. It was probably why Miss Frost had so much trouble with me during our counseling sessions.

We had to miss a session. Class was off for a few days, not just because of the dead kids, but because of the X-Men themselves. I was lucky. Miss Pryde didn't die, even though she'd been run through. That gold kid, Josh, he had some freaky healing powers. He'd grown back everything missing from Jay's wing, which was one thing, but healing the damage done by a big metal sliver in a woman's stomach was something else.

So I didn't lose the only adult that had my back from day one in the Institute to a piece of rogue machinery.

Which was another thing. Apparently the Danger Room got a body while it was trying to kill us. Wasn't that fun? This was the second reason classes had been off for a little while. They had gone looking for it. It stole a Blackbird and went off... somewhere.

Good riddance. Let it be someone else's problem for a bit. Enough bad shit had happened here for the time being. But of course, that wasn't going to happen. In classes, we were already hearing about substitutes preparing to come in to replace some of our teachers who would be going out to try and take the Danger Room thing down.

I didn't want it. Maybe the whole seeing my instructor with a fist-sized hole in her belly and back brought out the bitch in me, but I didn't like the idea of chasing the thing that did it.

"You look like you have a lot on your mind, Mister Marcher."

Oh, yeah. This was still a thing as well. Therapy sessions with Miss Frost. Oh joy. Only now, instead of the topic being my insanity, it was a grief thing.

They were speaking to every student that had been in the Danger Room for the final Field Day event, but I was already having sessions to begin with. This just meant there were real questions to ask me now to see how I was doing.

Who cared how I was doing? I didn't die. I wasn't hurt that badly. Yeah, I was a bit rattled, but I just tried not to think about it much.

I wasn't any more willing to play ball than I had been before all of the unpleasantness happened. But fine. I would lay on her comfy-ass couch and waste a full hour of her time every few days if she wanted. I liked sitting still and resting, even if napping was almost impossible for me.

"I said everything I wanted to already," I told Miss Frost. I didn't even look at her. I was too bust counting dimples in the ceiling.

"And that's all you want to say _now_?" I don't know what she was aiming for. I wasn't going to emote, if that was what she wanted.

"Yep," If nothing else, I wasn't going to make this process easy, "Saying anything else wouldn't do anything. It wouldn't help anything. Won't bring anyone back. Won't make me feel any better."

Dwelling on the deaths and everything else that happened wouldn't solve a thing. I guess I could understand wanting take sure we were all okay, but I was a 'move along' kind of guy. Things like this just made me crabby.

"You're suppressing," Miss Frost said. She didn't need telepathy for that. I was being obtuse about this session, "That's not healthy, Mister Marcher."

She was so patient though, no matter how contentious I was being. Why wasn't she reacting to all of this? If you were from outside of the Institute, hell, even if you went there, you would have thought she was the biggest ice queen around.

But she didn't flinch. Her or Mister Summers. I mean he didn't because he was a hardass, but if you really looked for it, you could tell he was stricken. Miss Frost, I didn't know why she had to put on the uncaring facade.

I mean come on. Show that you care. I'm not saying she had to cry. I didn't want to see that. But to treat it as business as usual? Don't try to brush it off.

"Do you want me to yell at you? Do you want me to get up and scream in your face how this is your fault and all that crap?" I asked, starting to get my dander up, "I don't care about being right. I care that this didn't have to happen like this! It didn't! And yelling at you would just make you mad, so you could yell back, or give me one of your smartass replies, and you'd feel better, even just a little bit, but I don't want that!"

"What do you want?

That was a good question. I wanted a lot of things. I wanted all of this to have never happened in the first place. I wanted my word to mean something, so that I could believe that when I made a call _someone_ would believe me.

But I couldn't have that, unless someone had a time machine they were willing to let me use. So I had to be a bit more realistic with what I wanted.

"I want you to sit there and think about it. I want you to think about the whole thing. I want you to sit there and have to block out trying to read every student you talk to's mind, so you don't have to see what they saw and feel how they felt the moment we saw Specter and Dryad dead on the floor," I don't know where it came from, but something told me to twist the knife in just a little deeper, "...D'ya talk to the Cuckoos yet?"

It was a low blow. Saying what I said, the way I said it, was the cheapest way to get a reaction that I could ever think of, and there wasn't any good excuse for it. I _wanted_ to see tears. I _wanted_ to see that this affected her just as much as it did the rest of the kids on Mister Summers' squad.

I don't know what Miss Frost was thinking afterwards, whether she thought about mind-fucking me into the next millennium, whether she thought about doing that thing where she turned into diamond to try and beat the shit out of me, or something else. Instead of any of that, she gave me the coldest stare I'd ever gotten from another person.

The silence was eventually broken with one sentence, "We're done here, Mister Marcher."

...I'm a complete asshole.

XxX

That session stuck with me for days. Being grumpy was one thing. I could be pretty surly at a given moment on good days. But what I had said to Miss Frost had been a bridge too far. It didn't make me feel good, and it didn't do anything for anyone else either. If anything, it made things worse for at least two of us.

Nothing had come of it. I didn't get any detention or some other disciplinarian action taken against me. It was a therapy session. I couldn't get punished for speaking my mind in there. That didn't excuse it though. While it may have been the time and the place, it was done with the sole purpose of hurting someone else. I didn't want to ever be that sort of guy.

I hadn't seen Miss Frost since then, and I didn't look forward to any future run-ins, this time because of me. In the meantime though, classes started up again, and we all wound up settling back in on a normal schedule, even if things were still tense in certain aspects of campus life.

I was on autopilot, just copying verbatim everything our teacher was saying. Taking notes wasn't such a big chore. It was just tedious. If you were like me, you would let your mind wander, but pay just enough attention to get accurate information. It was a good thing our teacher was good at what he did. It made it easy to pay half attention.

I stopped jotting down the lesson in my notebook to take a moment to breathe. My eyes momentarily drifted up to the dark-haired man in the suit teaching at the head of the class.

The teacher of the business courses, Mister Jean-Paul Beaubier; Northstar. He spoke English with a Quebecois accent, but it wasn't hard to understand him. It just added some flair to his lectures. He was also interesting because his powers were kind of like mine. The closest I'd seen so far, even though there were some serious differences.

For instance: He could fly, while I couldn't. He was way faster than me, but I still barely knew what I was doing with my powers. Also, I could do more stuff with my light energy. I just had to figure out that I could first.

If he didn't have a full squad of students already, and if Ruth hadn't more or less convinced Miss Pryde to take me onto the Paladins, I wouldn't have minded having him as an advisor.

I let out a yawn that was louder than I would have liked and got a few looks for it, including from Mister Beaubier. He stopped the lesson gave me a stern look that was more in jest than anything else. All I could do was shrug and lower my head. He let it go though. I got good grades in his class. Hell, there wasn't necessarily any class I struggled with and I stayed out of trouble with teachers, so they cut me some slack.

Before anything else could happen, Mister Logan walked over dressed in flannel and a cowboy hat. He looked around for a moment before spotting me. Without missing a beat, he walked over and plucked me up to drag me out of class. He didn't say anything to me, sparing little more than a word to Mister Beaubier before we got to the door, "Hey, I'm borrowing Glowstick here for a bit. Got it cleared with the top brass... and Kitty."

It all happened so quickly and smoothly, even Mister Beaubier was surprised for a moment, "Alright then," He said, just before we made it outside, "Bellamy, make sure you read chapter 13 and finish the quiz at the end. Also, I need your topic ideas for the project at the end of the semester."

I heard him just fine, but my attention was more set on the burly, hairy guy with claws that had gotten me pulled out of class for... why did he pull me out of class? I could only think of one thing I'd done lately to be in trouble for, so I decided to try and run damage control quickly.

"Look, if this is what I said about Miss Frost, my bad. I was pissed, and I wanted to make her mad too," I said.

Logan turned his head my way, wondering what I was even talking about, "What?" He said before shaking his head. It didn't matter what I was talking about. It wasn't why he had come to get me, "...Yeah, I don't care about that. S'not why I'm here."

"Oh," That was a relief, if nothing else. At least I wasn't in trouble. It still didn't answer my question as to why we were doing whatever we were doing, "...Well, what is it then?"

He rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh. Whatever this was must have hit close to home somehow, "There's someone I want you to meet. Or, more like somebody I want you to help me find. You're from San Francisco, ain't 'cha?"

"Yeah, sure," He knew this already, seeing as how he was one of the people who came to get me from there in the first place, "Why me though? I would figure you wouldn't need anyone's help to find someone," Or that he would get someone better equipped for the job, like an actual member of the X-Men.

"I don't need you for the search. It's... complicated," He seemed hesitant to tell me anything, and I had a problem with that if he wanted me to do this with him.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Mister Logan turned and looked back at me as if he expected a wound up look to get me to keep going. As scary as he was, some things had changed, "If this is going to be another one of those things where you don't tell me what's happening because I'm a student, I'm going back to class."

He was shorter than me by a few inches, but he marched right up to me like a giant and stared right up in my face. I could smell beer and tobacco on him, as clear as day, "Ya wanna call your own shot now, is that it?" The sound of metal claws sliding between the joints of his adamantium knuckles drew my attention, but I didn't look down, "You made it through one near-death experience, and we're sorry for that. But you ain't the man around here. Not yet."

My wanting an explanation was not a challenge to his dominance, or whatever his intimidation trip was supposed to be. I needed him to understand that, with eye contact and confidence, "I don't want to fight. I actually _want_ to help. All I want is to know what I'm here for. Is that too much to ask?"

I didn't come to the Institute to be a soldier, quietly taking orders and going where I was told. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people and make my own informed decisions on what I was going to do. If I never knew enough about what I was getting into before I was stuck neck-deep in it, I would never be able to do that.

It didn't mean I was never going to listen. But having some background on what I was potentially putting myself on the line for, and why it mattered to me or anyone else was kind of important. On the plus side, I heard his claws retract.

Fake it 'til you make it, baby.

Mister Logan wasn't pleased, but he must have seen enough of my point to let it go. That was good. He still beat my ass on a regular basis during late night training. There was no need to make that even worse, "It's a personal thing," He told me as we started walking again, "I'll tell you more on the jet. You know how to fly it without Nightcrawler holding your hand, don't 'cha?"

"Ooh, you're gonna let me fly?" This excited me. I only got to fly in controlled situations, and never very far or for very long. This was a cross-country flight too. Plenty of time to cut loose in the air.

"As long as you don't kill us."

Some time away from the school would probably do me some good anyway. What better place to get away for a while than my neck of the woods? Maybe more things would make sense if I spent a few hours or a day in my old stomping grounds.

XxX

Mister Logan's a scarier guy than you would figure if you weren't listening to this.

When you first see him, you take a look and you think that this is a guy that's probably seen some serious crap in his life. He must be one bad mofo. But then you trick yourself into thinking that he couldn't possibly be as tough as he looks. Most people do that when they see a person like that. We've seen too many pieces of media where the scary-looking guy is a real teddy bear, instead of the dangerous dude they seem to be.

This is not the case with Mister Logan. There is no question that this is a dangerous man, and not just because of the claws, and the adamantium skeleton, and the healing factor.

He only had to tell me one story to get the point across about how much trouble likely came with him. The story behind the reason we went to San Francisco to begin with. It all started with a little secret program called Weapon X, a program to force superpowers. And it only got weirder and more uncomfortable from there.

"So you have a chick clone?" I asked under my breath as we sat on a cable car in town. One would have figured that this would be more common knowledge than it was. However, that all depended on him telling much of anyone at all. I could see how someone would want that kept close to the vest. It took a long time for him to actually explain it to me, "Those crazy fuckers cloned you? How'd that work out?"

"Well enough, apparently," Logan grumbled, making sure no one was overhearing us, "Look, when you meet her, she might be a little... off. The place that made her did a real number on her."

At least I got a warning long before we ever even got close to her, "By 'off', do you mean she'll try to murder me?"

"No. Maybe," He wasn't sure about the answer, which didn't do a lot to inspire confidence, "I'd keep from making any sudden moves depending on how close to her you are. Kid spooks like a deer."

Right. A deer. A deer, presumably, with claws.

I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that this was going to suck. But I quickly shut it down. Nothing was written in stone. If I didn't give Wolverine's clone a reason to try and take my head off, she wouldn't do it. Simple as that... hopefully.

Mister Logan wasn't much for talking on a good day, which made for a boring ride until I started pressing him with more questions that came to mind, "Why are we coming to get her?" I asked, getting a growl out of him. More questions was not the ideal way to spend his day, apparently, "If you know where she is and all that, why don't you just ask her to come?"

"She was there until a little while ago, and she was never particularly hot on the idea," Logan said, jostling in place in his seat, looking all kinds of irritable, "Dumb kid thinks she's got a better chance of goin' it alone, or something. Either that, or she doesn't want anybody else involved, which is just as stupid to me. Nobody fights people like the ones after her all alone."

But... he was the one that let her go, wasn't he? "So she left and you just... let her?" Maybe it was just giving her time to find herself, or something. I didn't know.

"I ain't her dad."

Well, there went that theory. But it sounded like he had just as much of an idea of what he was supposed to do with his clone as I did, which was nothing.

Still though, my mouth was faster than my brain, so before I had finished my latest thought, the end results of the last had already come out of my mouth, "You're out here on the other side of the country looking for her. So that means you're her 'something'," Luckily, by the time Mister Logan turned a nasty look my way, I had reentered the present time frame, "I'll just stop talking now."

"Good."

Maybe it wasn't that I was specifically bad with first impressions? Maybe it was the content of my words that made others dislike me? Maybe people would like me more if I just talked significantly less? It was worth a thought.

XxX

There had been a tracker in the girl's phone that led us to the pier area, but that was as much as it had helped us, unless she was thirty yards out in the bay somewhere. Fortunately, we had something almost as good as GPS to help us out.

Logan took several noticeable sniffs of the air before turning to stare off in a certain direction, "Girl didn't go far," He said, leaning against the railing by the water. It was more of a chance to figure things out than a rest. Suggesting something like that would have been insulting to him, and it was a bright, sunny day, so I was getting a good charge just from being outside, bucket hat on my head or not.

"You can smell her?" I asked. A stupid question, seeing as how I had been around him when he had done things like that before. I dealt with people who had powers on a daily basis, "Right, nevermind. Not important. So is she still around here somewhere? Can you see her?" He didn't answer me at first, letting off a deep scowl instead, "Mister Logan?"

I hadn't pissed him off again, had I?

Fortunately, that hadn't been the case. It was more to do with our current 'mission', as it was, "Yeah, I can. But she can smell me too. She's avoiding me," Ouch. And as long as that was a thing, she could just stay away from us all day. If she was anything like Mister Logan when it came to tenacity, she wouldn't just roll over and give up, "You've gotta find her on your own instead."

I turned toward him so fast my neck cracked, "What? You want me to go alone."

It wasn't that I was necessarily afraid. It was just, well, I kept thinking about the whole 'clone of Wolverine' thing. Randomly approaching Mister Logan on a good day was a questionable decision. Going after him when you knew he was trying to stay away from you was a different level of stupid. I kept thinking that she was an exact copy of him, only a female.

"She won't stay put if she knows I'm on the way," Logan said gruffly. He didn't like putting something like this in my hands, "Just... talk to her and convince her to wait to hear from me."

The word 'convince' was far from convincing language, "And she won't do anything crazy when I bring you up?"

"No. Why?"

Self-preservation, for one thing. Because he was probably the only thing I could talk about that may have gotten her to so much as stop and listen to me, "Just making sure I don't end up in a fight. I've had enough of that lately."

Logan snickered and gave me a shove. It almost sent me stumbling out into the street, "Toughen up, buttercup," He said, "But for the sake of this, ya shouldn't wind up getting into any shit. Laura's a good girl at heart. Kid just hasn't had a whole lot of guidance."

Misguidance was just as dangerous as ill intent, sometimes.

After we went a ways down the street, Logan stopped and took several steps back, as though he were keeping out of a certain range. Once he was satisfied, he nodded to himself, "This is as far as I'm going. She'll move again if she thinks I'm getting' close to her."

So it was my turn to do my thing, "Cool, I'll just-," I stopped before I could head across the next intersection. I had forgotten something very important to the objective of finding a girl, "I have no idea what I'm looking for. What does she look like?"

"She's short; got long black hair and green eyes. If she's around a good number of people, you'll be able to pick her out of a crowd. Just look for the most uncomfortable girl in eyeshot."

That was all he had? It really wasn't much. He didn't have a picture or something? "Are you serious? That's all you've got?" Having three features to try and make out who I was after was better than nothing at least, "You know what? Fine. I'll make do. If you... smell her leave the area, I don't know, just call me or something."

Even though I did live in San Francisco, I wasn't some expert on the city, but we were in a big tourist area. If she were hiding nearby, there were a few public places to pick out before others where anyone savvy wouldn't have forced a confrontation. It was just a matter of whittling them down until I found the right one.

Logan made it easy by basically taking me to the cross-section of the street I needed, pointing me in the right direction, and saying "Two miles, that way."

As I went 'that way', it certainly narrowed down where I was going by a lot. Google Maps was useful like that. When he said two miles, I was pretty sure he meant a hard two miles. And there were only so many things that were exactly two miles away that someone would bother going that might have been able to hide them inconspicuously.

I stood out front of a downtown movie theater. It wasn't the one I usually went to, mostly because there was a better one nearby, and I lived closer to another one away from that part of the city, but it did get good business. More importantly, it was the most notable place that was almost smack dab two miles from where Logan shooed me away.

In other words, not a bad place to start. Dropping $12 for a movie I wasn't going to see just to get inside sucked, but what else could I do? Sneaking into places wasn't really my forte. Once I was in though, I could go where I wanted. They really only had ushers around during busy times, so there weren't people watching the doors to every theater. You just had to be careful to not make it obvious you were going from place-to-place. I snuck between a lot of movies for the price of one ticket like that when I was younger.

"If I were trying to hide from someone like me or Mister Logan, which movie would I go see?" As though it really mattered. There were nine theaters.

And that was how I began searching. It wasn't so bad. Eventually, I stumbled into a random money grab action flick. Why not? Everyone loved a good, mindless, ass-kicking movie.

In theaters where the movie had started already, it was dark enough where no one would notice a guy like me slipping in and going up and down the stairs – other than a little disturbance when I went past them, and with the light from the screen, I could see enough to make out features on people, only seeing as how the features Logan gave me to use could have belonged to any random girl walking down the street, it didn't do me a lot of good.

What _did_ do me a lot of good was picking up on the fact that while I was scanning the moviegoers, one of them was staring right at me, not bothering to so much as blink. Not in a, 'Sit down, asshole. You're interrupting the movie,' kind of way. More like an, 'Oh gosh, I really hope you're not here looking for me,' kind of way.

Well, I was there already. After all, with the effort she had gone through to hide in plain sight, she wouldn't just up and stab me, right?

...Right?

I got to her aisle and started moving her way through the seats. The closer I got, the more she seemed to tense up. I just had to remember to stay calm. She was freaked out and she had Wolverine's powers, so she could probably smell fear or something, and that would just make her more scared, and by the time I got within arms' reach she would come out swinging and I would lose an eye or an arm.

I held my hands in plain sight, palms forward as if to show her that I wasn't there to do any harm. As dumb as it might have been, I sat down next to her, as though it was where I was supposed to be. I was wide open. She could have taken me out in a heartbeat if she'd wanted to.

It was my way of extending an olive branch.

"Is your name Laura?" I asked, whispering as softly as I could. The girl hesitated at first, but nodded one time, sharply, "Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Bellamy, from the Xavier Institute," I stopped short of offering my hand to shake. There was still a chance I would lose it.

Laura continued to eye me warily, sizing me up. People did that a lot. I must not have cut a very impressive figure, in addition to often making shitty first impressions, "I do not remember seeing you," She eventually said. She was willing to speak to me, which was a good start, "I spent a bit of time there, not too long ago."

I shrugged where I sat in my chair, starting to get comfortable. Laura didn't seem to be the aggressive sort at all, which was weird, given the expectations I had built up for her in my mind, "I don't remember seeing you either, unless you've been gone for the last few months, because that's when I started there."

She seemed to shrink down in the jacket she wore. It wasn't just that she lacked the outward aggression of Wolverine. It was like she lacked confidence.

This did not compute. Then again, it let me understand the spooked deer comparison Mister Logan gave me when he was telling me about her.

If I had to use a word to describe her best from just meeting her the first time, it would have been 'timid'.

"Why did you look so freaked out when you saw me?" I asked her. There were much better places to have a conversation than a movie theater where you were supposed to be quiet.

"You smelled faintly of Logan," She said, a slight wrinkle to her nose, "I could tell he was nearby, but I was more concerned with finding an overwhelming scent from a distance that the minuscule scent on you went unnoticed over the... powerful odors of the theater. A tactical error, perhaps."

I was slightly put out at being identified because the person I had come to see had a bloodhound's sense of smell, "He grabbed me once like five hours ago. It was the only time he touched me. How strong is your nose to-?" Nope. Focus. No getting sidetracked with how everyone's weird-ass powers worked. I had enough trouble figuring out my own, "Ugh, not important. Anyway, sorry to spook ya, but he asked me to come get you because he figured you were trying to avoid him."

Laura stared at me to the point where it got unnerving. If ever a girl could deadpan without being sarcastic about it... "I told him directly over the phone that I did not wish to see him at this time," And then she apparently threw the phone into the water, which should have sent as clear a message as possible.

It was more than likely that she had a point, but in my very limited experience, you wanted someone watching your back when you could get it, "You're probably better off than I would be in your shoes, but the guy is worried about you."

At that, she sank farther back into the cushy chair behind her, "He has no need to be. He is not responsible for me," She mumbled, mostly to herself.

I just shrugged, whether or not she could see it, "Look, I know about... you. Kind of," She noticeably stiffened once I said that, and it only got worse when I went into the little details I had, "You're a black ops badass that's been doing nasty stuff since before I could probably tie my shoes."

*SNIKT!*

I heard a wet popping, slicing noise and looked down to see the tips of her claws poking out of the skin between her knuckles. The light from the screen glinted off of the metal, "You should not know about any of that," She said gravely.

Oh God. After all I had been through, I was going to die on the down-low like this? I was going to get stabbed and bleed out in a dark theater, all alone. And my blood still probably wouldn't have been the grossest thing to get on any of the seats in there.

I tried to keep my cool. After all, fake it 'til you make it. And she was supposed to be level-headed, according to Wolverine, "I don't know much, just the cliffnotes," I said, coolly, "If you don't want to talk about it, it's not any of my business. But it should be someone's besides yours. Logan wants to make it his," How rough must her life really have been if she could go from zero to one-hundred like that? "I don't know what's eating you, but it's got to suck trying to go all lone wolf."

She let out a sigh and turned away from me, giving me more of her shoulder and back than her face, "Have you ever felt as though you were a danger to the people around you, Bellamy?" She asked me, "It is too dangerous at the school. Not for me, but for you, and others. _Because_ of me."

 _Because of me_.

The frown that came to my lips felt heavy. I had been frowning a lot lately, I noticed. Even so, she had asked me a question, and I didn't have a problem answering, "No, I haven't felt that way. And I don't know why you think the way you do. But I have felt like I can't protect the people around me," I revealed to her, "All my best laid plans. Every half-baked little drabble I could come up with, and I still couldn't do what I needed. And people died. Others got hurt. And everybody's scared," My eyes drifted away from her back to the movie, "…This was all a week ago, by the way."

She turned a bit back towards me. Perhaps a little interest, maybe? "But I thought you said that you were a student at the Xavier Institute?"

I let out a laugh. There was no heart or soul to it, "All of this happened _at_ the Xavier Institute," Under the watch of people better than us. Smarter than us. More experienced than us. I shook it off. I didn't want to think about that, "But my sob story is a total drop in the bucket compared to yours from the little bit I got, so I'll just leave it at that," Thankfully, she seemed to let it go pretty quickly, "All I'm saying is, just because you don't think you're good enough for something, doesn't mean you can't have it. Do you want to try and be a student?"

Logan was a pretty demanding guy, but I don't think he would have dragged her to the school against her will, even if they did have the connection that they shared. I don't think anyone was forced to attend the Institute... as far as I knew, anyway.

"I do not know what I want," Laura said, not so much as wincing or reacting to any of the action happening on the screen, "I only know that I do not want to be hunted. I do not want to kill anyone that I shouldn't."

I was wary of this girl, but if she didn't have any bad intentions, there wasn't any reason not to reach out, "Look, you are probably not the most dangerous thing any of us are going to deal with in that place. You probably won't be the most dangerous thing we have to deal with there this week," As much as I was joking, it wasn't really a joke. I was starting to think gathering all of the most impressionable young mutants around in one big old place had both huge positives and negatives.

Laura's sense of humor was lacking though. Either that, or I just wasn't funny, "You do not understand," She said, and for a moment I thought I had blown it, "...But Logan may. I will talk to him."

I nodded, satisfied. That was a huge weight off of my shoulders. I didn't have any other way to get her to go other than trying to convince her, and I didn't really want to return empty-handed, "So... do you actually want to watch this or...?"

Great. Way to make everything awkward again, Bel. Laura didn't answer, instead looking at me like I was some kind of idiot. She might not have been too far off of the mark.

"You know what? Let's just finish the movie," I proposed, "Then we can deal with Mister Logan."

Great. She agreed to that much.

XxX

In life, you found ways to take satisfaction in the little things. Little things like leaving Mister Logan waiting for an extra two hours so you could finish watching the crappy movie that you didn't even like - just to see the look on his face when you finally made it back.

It was afternoon when we made it back, and indeed, he was pissed, but he also couldn't say anything, because I got Laura to come back with me. He did glare at the bag of popcorn I was eating when we finally walked up to him back near the pier.

And yes, I did buy expensive $5-plus snacks from the concession stand on our way out for the express purpose of letting him know exactly what we had been wasting his time doing. Why? Because I deserved a day out, and because I'm an asshole.

"Have fun?" Logan growled out, his fists clenched. I could see his claws flexing behind the muscle and tendons in his hands.

I already had someone pull their claws on me once that day, so the second time didn't bother me nearly as much, "Not really. That movie was garbage, and Laura doesn't really talk much," Laura punctuated this with an empty sucking noise from the slushie in her hand, "See?"

Logan moved me out of the way and stood face-to-face with the girl he had come across the country to find. Laura to her credit didn't flinch. She just kept drinking her treat and staring him back down.

After a half-minute of ineffective mean-mugging, Logan gave up and sighed. It had been a long day, "What the hell are you doing all the way out here, kid?"

Laura used her slushie to stall and try to find the right words, "Remembering good times," She eventually said, "I was not planning to stay at the Xavier Institute, Logan. I... needed time to think of my next course of action."

Logan folded his arms over his chest and stood back, "And? What'd you come up with?" He asked. That was was good. He was willing to hear her out. That was the key to good communication; a willingness to listen.

I had no business sticking my nose in any longer, so I just stood back and let Laura speak her mind, " _They_ will not leave me alone. You know this," She declared, "They would have heard of what I had done in New York. They would have found me. They would have known I was at school with the other children, and they would not have cared who was put in danger in order to get to me."

Logan nodded as though he understood where she was coming from, "So... nothing then. You've got nothing."

Well, there went the whole 'listening' thing.

Laura's face had the first actual reaction I had ever seen it have, and even that was minute. A widening of her eyes in shock, "W-What?"

Logan didn't let up, "You said you came out here to think about your next move. You've been gone for months," In other words, more than enough time to think up a decent plan for oneself, "Jeez, the one thing you would be a normal teenager about. Not thinking things through."

"I have thought about this. I am not normal," She looked down at her free hand and popped her claws. I could see them better now, and noticed she had two instead of three like Logan, "I am dangerous."

Mister Logan grabbed my shirt and yanked me over between the two of them, "If he doesn't dump enough power on a regular basis, he'll blow up," I glowed for a moment to help illustrate his point. A visual aid, if you will.

"You know what I meant," Laura replied.

"No, I don't," Mister Logan snarled, "Because if you're not talking about yourself, and you're talking about the assholes that made you, big deal. You ain't the only one with people after your head," God, was that an understatement, "Everyone on the staff's got a little vendetta with somebody. Hell, a good number of the students do too."

I took the moment to interject, "Some guy tried to cut me up so I could power his cyborgs. Then the Danger Room came to life and tried to kill all of us," Logan did not appreciate the side commentary. I liked talking too much, even when I shouldn't have, "What? I was helping you."

"The point is-," Logan said, shooting a quick pointed look my way before focusing back on his clone, "-You ain't bringing nothing to the table that we don't already got in spades. Don't let the past drag you down. Give the place a try. A _real_ try this time. You might just find something you're looking for, and if you don't? Well you gave it a shot. S'nothing wrong with wanting something better, darlin'."

Laura looked away from Logan and up at the sky, as though deep in thought, using the blue sky and the sunlight to help make her decision, "…I will try again," She said, "Because you asked me to, Logan."

Aww, well wasn't that sweet. I considered it a resounding mission accomplished. And not a drop of blood was spilled. I felt that a reward was in order.

"Hey," I tapped Logan on the shoulder to get his attention, "Do I get an extra credit grade for this, or something?"

"Shut up, Glowstick."

XxX

Flying in the Blackbird was great, compared to commercial air. We went faster, and better yet, no check-in and check-out process. You just hop off and go about your business.

Besides, the sooner I got away from Logan and Laura, the better. I was pretty sure they wanted to fillet me for interrupting their father/daughter, brother/sister, originator/clone bonding time. Plus, Wolf was going to be pissy because I vanished without telling him where I had gone. He acted like he didn't care, but I knew better. The big, metal softy.

Before I went back to my room though, I swung by the offices of all of my teachers whose classes I'd missed that day. Getting called off to do X-Men stuff had to net you an excuse for your attendance or any of your assignments.

Some were there, some weren't. To my surprise, Miss Pryde was actually there. Lockheed saw me come in and shot a jet of fire my way. Damn mini-dragon. Miss Pryde looked up from her computer and smiled when she saw me, "Lockheed, be nice. Bellamy's had a long day."

"Oh yeah," I yawned as I walked over to her desk, "Thanks for letting me go with Logan to San Francisco today. I didn't get to see my family, but it was still nice to get out of here for a bit."

"I figured as much," She said, gesturing to the chair next to her desk for me to sit down, "You think too much. I figured if you stayed around here for too long, it would eat away at you. It wasn't hard to convince Logan that he could use someone your age to put Laura more at ease."

I eased back, putting my feet up on an open spot near the edge of the desk. Lockheed tried to burn my feet though. Almost knocked me out of the chair, "It was fun, except for the times when I thought Logan would kill me," I paused, "...And the times I thought Laura would kill me."

"He likes you," Miss Pryde tried to assure me, "He wouldn't bother wasting time beating you up every other night if he didn't."

Ah, so she knew about that. I hadn't really gotten around to telling her about my extra practices with our hand-to-hand instructor, "Really?"

"Yep," Miss Pryde said, reaching over to poke me in the sternum, "If he really didn't like you, you'd have three holes in you, right about here," I tended to notice that a lot of jokes about Wolverine wound up having an uncomfortable amount of realism to them. She switched gears and looked at me consolingly, "How you doing, tough guy?"

It was nice that she was concerned, but I had gotten off from the Danger Room crap as well as I possibly could have. She hadn't, "I should be asking you that. You're the one that got rebar shoved through your guts."

She leaned forward and gave me a big grin, "Having a mutant healer does wonders," Indeed. I had to make sure to thank Josh later for saving my favorite teacher's life, "You never answered my question, by the way."

I raised and dropped my shoulders as an indicator of how I was, "I'm okay, I guess. At least things are trying to get settled back down, but it's still so weird around here. I don't know how long this whole funk is going to hang around in the air."

"I just want you to know, if I didn't get to tell you yet, that you did great," Miss Pryde said. Her tone was laced with pride. It felt nice to have someone else be proud of something that I did. Normally, I had to gas myself up when it came to anything that I achieved, "You did just as well as I knew you would, and let me tell you, my expectations were already huge."

I went silent for a second before sending a raised eyebrow her way, "I don't think you're talking about Field Day."

Miss Pryde took off her glasses and set them aside to talk to me seriously, "I'm not. Bel, I've heard about what you did in there," I twitched. I felt it. She saw it, and it showed, "When everything went belly-up, you kept your head. I think I know you by now. When you think about how it all went, you're going to see it as a failure. But it wasn't. Not for you, at least. _We_ failed. _We_ failed _you_. You didn't do anything wrong, I promise."

With God as my witness, that was the closest I had come to crying since the end of the Field Day finale mayhem. I could feel the pressure swelling up behind my eyes. With all she had said, one sentence more than anything else had almost broken the emotional dam I'd built up to stop anything like that from happening.

I had been waiting for days to hear someone, anyone, say that I didn't fuck up. That they knew I had done my best to keep anyone from getting hurt. I didn't know how much I had needed that until right then, even if it was just said to make me feel better.

"Get some rest," Miss Pryde told me, shooing me away. I think she could tell that I was feeling some kind of way now, "I've still got work to do tonight. We've got squad exercises tomorrow, and now I've got to find something for us to do that doesn't involve the Danger Room that's now free and on the loose."

"I... will," I would try to, at least. The reminder of the effing Danger Room being out in the open world with the vendetta against the people who trained in it that it had was serious nightmare fuel, "I've just got one more place to go before I head back to the dorms."

XxX

I dreaded this more than anything else I'd had to do all day long, and I had only been thinking about doing it for the hour that I had been off of the plane.

Standing in front of the office of one Emma Frost, I hesitated to knock on the door. The last time we had been in one another's presence hadn't ended particularly well. I had been a little shit, and this lady used to be a badass supervillain. She absolutely wouldn't have forgotten what I'd said.

Oh well. At that point, I couldn't just turn around and leave. It would have taken more effort to do that than to raise my hand.

*KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!*

"Come in."

Whether she knew it was me before I had entered, I didn't know. I couldn't tell by looking at her if she was surprised. She was definitely still angry though. The look she gave me could have frozen a burning flame solid.

There was a decided amount of sharpness in the first words out of her mouth, as passive as they were, "I didn't expect to see you here without being told to be."

Fair enough. It was a last second plan, so even I didn't expect to be there that night, "I'll be honest, when I came over here I was expecting you to be gone until tomorrow," I took my hat off and ran my fingers through my curly hair, "I kind of wish you were, so I could say I tried without, you know, actually having to do this awkward crap."

Being vague was only annoying her, which I didn't have to try had to do given our thus far strenuous relationship, "Tried what?" She asked, "Do you have something else to say to me Mister Marcher? I would have figured you got everything off of your chest that you needed to with your tongue lashing the other day."

I didn't sit down. I stood as tall as I could in front of her. For once, I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted her to realize that I was more than just some kid, "I know you guys did your best. And I know that there's no way any of you could have ever wanted this to happen, but it did," It wasn't like any of us needed the reminder, but it had to be said, "I don't want any promises that it won't happen again. I've heard the stories. This place has been destroyed at least twice before I ever showed up here."

She couldn't see my point yet. To her, I was beating around the bush, and she didn't like me enough at the moment to go along with that, "So what do you want?"

Fine. To the heart of the matter then, "Would you guys listen?" I asked. She seemed to look even more miffed at me than before, but I had already started going down this particular path. At that point, there was no reason to stop, "I mean, you say all of this stuff, you and Cyclops, about how we're the next generation of X-Men, and how we have to be ready, and accept responsibility. I tried. I really did. I tried as hard as I could. Even to the point where I was ready to get thrown out of here for messing up the Danger Room."

"I don't regret stopping you from doing that," Miss Frost interrupted with a raise of her hand, "My intentions were to make sure the Danger Room stayed operational, true. But in full hindsight, if you had done such a thing, torn the central computer out, you would have given it the chance to gain a body separate from the room itself. We found that out the hard way. As fond of you as I may _not_ be, I would never wish death on you."

Well, as much as I didn't like many things about Miss Frost, I didn't want any friction between us to be because I was acting like a brat, so I kept going, "When I brought the Danger Room stuff to anyone that could help, you guys made me feel like I was five years old, crying to my parents about the monster under my bed."

It was an error in judgment. An oversight. There was no worse thing to accept when it came to a disaster – that it could have been prevented, or at least contained if you looked as closely as you needed to.

"You're teaching us how to be heroes. So don't you think that you might want to hear us out when something's up?" That was all I wanted to say. I didn't hate her, or any of the other staff that overlooked what I had to say, but this crap couldn't happen again.

Miss Frost got up from her desk and stepped forward to me. I was several inches taller than her, but it felt like we were eye-to-eye. Was she reading my mind for something? I couldn't tell. And if she was, what for? "You find yourself in a very awkward time in your development, Mister Marcher," She said to me, "No longer a boy, yet not quite a man. Not quite an X-Man, yet so much more than a civilian."

It was a rotten place to be in. We were supposed to be getting groomed to take up the mantle in the place of the true heroes one day, yet we were looked upon as needing to be protected. They wanted us to be children, but they expected things from us that kids couldn't do.

I felt like a school for superheroes was a bit of an oxymoron. You couldn't dip your toes into that kind of pool. Either you were all in, or you were all out.

Miss Frost walked past me to a shelf where she had some kind of alcohol. She poured herself a small drink and walked over to the window that looked out onto the campus, "In a perfect world, these sorts of things would never be your problem. Not yet. This is a school. A place for young people like you to learn, and to feel safe while you do it. It's not supposed to be some kind of place where you feel like you have to fight for your lives. Even if that is in essence what we are preparing you to do as future X-Men, there will be a time for that. And it wasn't ever meant to be anytime this soon."

No kidding. It was a nice sentiment, but one that had already been ruined for me before any of this ever happened, "It doesn't look like the universe agrees."

She turned her head over her shoulder, a wry smile on her face, "Clearly. Then again, given the track record of previous members' ages, the universe never did care," The original X-Men were only my age when they were stuck saving the world. It was a lot to live up to, "Apparently our enemies, and only they, can decide when you are old enough to fight and die."

Well, they could throw me into whatever tiff they had with the elder X-Men. It wasn't like I had a choice, even if I was unwilling. But if they were expecting me to roll over and be cannon fodder meant to chip away at the morale of the senior staff, they could kneel down and suck it. I would microwave their faces off first. I said it before, but something like the Danger Room snafu was not going to happen again on my watch, and it absolutely wasn't going to happen to any of my people. Not as long as my incandescent ass continued to draw breath on this Earth.

If someone decided to try and take a shot at the junior varsity team because we were 'soft targets', it was up to us to make them see just how bad of a decision that was.

"Anyway, I came here to get that off of my chest, and to apologize," I choked that last word out. I was not a fan of apologies, "I'm not sorry for being mad. I meant what I said, for the most part. But I threw in the unnecessary stuff just to hurt you. I'm better than that. I don't need to take cheap shots to make a point."

I was pretty sure that none of this made anything better. She had pissed me off something fierce the other day with her little mind games. I had said some very heinous shit in return not too long ago, just to be hurtful. It was a start though, which was all I wanted out of it. I was still kind of hot, and I wouldn't be totally over everything for a while.

Miss Frost seemed to accept it though. She didn't tell me off outright, or dismiss me straight away. Maybe she wanted to get past it as well, "I didn't think you would be the type to seek me out to apologize once something was said and done."

She was still my headmistress. If I was going to be in the X-Men, she was probably going to be my boss. I could dislike her personally as much as I wanted. When the shit hit the fan, I needed her to know I was willing to let bygones be bygones; and vice-versa, "Well, I'm trying to be a good guy. Besides, you know what they say? 'We must be greater than what we suffer.'"

Like I said, I would be better. I had to be.

But oh, boy... this was only the beginning.

* * *

 **Well, you know what personal failure tastes like, young man. You've dealt with the danger and the disappointment. Now it's time to see how you come back from it.**

 **This was a come-down chapter after all of the stuff that has been happening. A little something to take it easy for a bit.**

 **Now, onto some other shiz, specifically about the presentation of the story. Bellamy is a teenager. This story is told from his point of view, which means he can't go into much detail in things he wasn't present for, and the information he has on things is either information he learned himself, or was told by others at some point. That means he isn't privy to everything at any given point.**

 **I know it should go without saying. I'm just heading that train of thought off at the pass. I'm intrepid like that.**

 **Alright, that's all I've got for now. Kenchi out.**


	12. Always Something Else

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Logan was good. Go watch it. This is my public service announcement for the day. Also, when Power Rangers comes out, I will also be watching that, although I will be wildly drunk when I'm sitting down to watch that.

I do not have high hopes for that film.

 **Chapter 12: Always Something Else**

* * *

Training with our squads was weird for a while. All of the teachers seriously relied on the Danger Room to put us through our paces. Without it, they had to get creative and come up with legit exercises for us to run on their own.

No one had any idea what to expect from their advisors when the new system was announced. All we could do was suit up and meet where we were told to go.

Thus, the amassed Paladins squad met on the lawn closest to the lake. Classes for the day had let out. The only one who still needed to show up was Miss Pryde, which led to us just killing time until then.

"Dude, what?" I said, wondering if I had heard Eddie right.

"I'm just saying, if we had weapons or something. I mean, what good am I in a straight-up fight?" He said, sounding completely serious about his proposal, "Hisako's got her armor. Bellamy's got his light powers. I can just buzz around the bad guys like a gnat. What's that supposed to do?"

Hisako rolled her eyes at her best friend's reasoning, "They're not going to give you a gun. Any kind of gun," She said.

"There are X-Men who have guns!" Eddie argued back in return.

"They're also old enough to carry guns," I chimed in before letting off a shrug, "...I guess. I've never met them."

Eddie groaned and landed on the ground from where he had been flying around, "Don't give me that. I'm not a punch and kick kind of guy. You know that," He said, before pointing at our resident telepath who was sitting in the grass, "And what about Ruth? What would she do when someone goes after her?"

Hisako let out a laugh and dropped down in the grass behind Ruth, setting her arms around her neck, "Turn their brains to mushy paperweights, or break their jaws instead. Unlike you, she actually tries to work with me and Bel on her hand-to-hand."

"She's not bad either," I pointed out, remembering all of the times that she had done extremely well against me despite not being anywhere near as strong and fast, "She doesn't pack much of a punch, but Ruthie's really hard to hit. Goddamn precog."

"Thank you, Bellamy. And sorry for your defeat. It will not hurt for long if you put ice on them. She just wants you to know that she still thinks you are very talented."

"But I haven't-," I started to say before realizing that she was in the middle of telling us the future. I had told her about saying things involving the future that weren't a matter of life and death, "Ruthie, remember what I told you about telling me stuff like that?"

"Yes, she does, sorry."

I was confused. I didn't want to know. It sounded like it ended painfully, but the humiliating kind of painful. Not that I had a problem with showing ass when the need arose, but if such a defeat could be avoided, who was I to say no? "...But, for the sake of avoiding all of this, what happens?"

Having someone actually want to hear her predictions for once put a massive smile on her face, "Your form on the spin kick was good, yes, but far too slow to-. Wait," She stopped. Her nose and mouth wrinkled thoughtfully, as though something else had changed. From that point she seemed to regard me with a measure of disappointment, "You do not know how to perform a... 'Superman Punch'. Why would you-," Once again, she stopped in the middle of her explanation, "...Please work more on your grappling in the near future, thank you."

No matter how many times Ruth told me a mistake that I was going to lose off of, another one always followed. Eventually, Hisako started laughing at my expense. Even Eddie felt the need to chime in, "Damn, Bel," He said, "Looks like you can't win this thing, even with Blindfold cleaning up your mistakes. Who are you fighting, Wolverine?"

That sounded about right. Whenever we sparred late at night, Wolverine seemed to make beating my ass into a science. I never made the same mistake twice, but then he never chose to beat me the same way twice either. Something about me learning too fast and not giving me the opening to get a lucky shot in.

Even Saberwolf was more lenient when we fought. He let me use my powers and held back a ton, enough that I actually won once or twice. Then he'd start trying harder. Apparently he didn't like to lose either. Another reason we got along, even if he swore he didn't like me.

I rolled my eyes at my two jerk teammates and looked down at Ruth, "Why are you getting visions about my spars with Mister Logan?" I asked semi-seriously. I still had to pick on her a bit, though, "Do you like watching me late at night, Ruthie? Sorry to disappoint you with something as boring as fighting. Maybe next time you can see something more interesting," I felt victorious when Ruth's skin turned red. She even pulled down her blindfold a bit to cover more of her face.

Aha! I knew I was hot. Even a blind girl could see it.

Hisako glared at me and turned her shoulder, putting part of herself between me and Ruth, "Gross, Bellamy. Keep your pants on during practice, would you?"

I didn't want to hear that. There was no shame to my game, whatever existed of it to be had. Screw the eye thing. Ruth was a girl, she was sixteen, and she was cute. All of this equaled fair game to me, as far as hitting on her. Plus, she wasn't nearly as scatterbrained as everyone liked to think. You try seeing the future at all random points of the day and keeping a regular pentameter of thought.

Besides, Ruth wasn't the only girl who got that treatment. Hell, she wasn't even the only one who got it on our team. Hisako did too, just as easily. She knew full well I was an equal opportunity when it came to flirting, so it wasn't like any of this was surprising.

"Well we all know where _your_ mind went," I shot back at her. She muttered in Japanese what I'm sure would have translated to some choice curses.

Any extra awkwardness was prevented by the timely intervention of our adviser.

Miss Pryde was all smiles as she walked up to the four of us. I wondered how she could be so chipper when she had to revamp her whole training plan for all of us. That was when I saw someone trailing behind her, using Miss Pryde's body to keep at an angle out of sight. It was hard to make out who it was until she got much closer. Even then, I almost didn't believe it.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone," Miss Pryde said, "So, it's good to see all of you back and ready to go. Before we get started though, I've got someone to introduce all of you to," She looked back at the person standing behind her and gestured for her to step forward, "Go ahead."

Laura stepped from behind her. She took a moment to look over all of us, trying to size us all up. When she got to me, I saw something like recognition. She'd better remember me. I was the one who came to grab her and bring her back here in the first place. Well, Mister Logan and I.

I was surprised to see her, and was the only one of us who really had any idea who she was (aside from Ruth, who didn't count because precog). The Institute could be a big place. I definitely didn't expect to come across her anytime soon, let alone a few days after we'd last crossed paths each other.

"Hi," She greeted us and stepped back before she realized she was expected to say more, "My name is Laura Kinney."

That was all we were going to get out of her for the time being, and Miss Pryde knew that. She stepped in and introduced the lot of us, "Well, this is the team I advise. Hisako, Eddie, Ruth, and Bellamy. Collectively, they are the Paladins."

Eddie, the most outgoing of the four of us probably saw that it was a hot girl he hadn't met before. That was all he needed to know to try and break the ice. My man. I knew we were friends for a reason, "Cool. New kid?" He asked, "You couldn't have picked a better squad to be introduced to. Our stock is on the rise lately. Right, Bel?"

"Just top guys and gals doing top things," I chimed in without thinking. Just as automatically, Eddie hit me with a 'too sweet'. Damn it, Eddie was the _best_ hype man. I didn't even have to try and come up with the absurd things that came out of my mouth when he was co-signing for me.

Hisako looked like she wanted to be anywhere other than near us while we were bro-ing out. Ruth got up and waved at Laura. I kept waiting for some kind of prediction from her. If one had come to her, she must have started listening to me about choosing when and where she told people, because she didn't tell us.

Miss Pryde continued introducing Laura, who didn't seem too eager to do it herself. Fair enough. More than a few things about her, I would have been eager to keep close to my own vest as well, "Laura just came back to school after a bit of an absence. She was never sorted onto a squad. It's a requirement for kids your age, so Logan asked a favor of me, to see if she wanted to join our team."

The thought of another teammate did sound nice. When I looked around, there wasn't a single one of us that didn't seem receptive to the idea, "That would be nice," Hisako said for all four of us, "We would only need one more to have a full team, for the first time ever, I might add."

We would still be understaffed, officially, but five was better than three, which was what the team had started with at the beginning of the semester. That was, if she joined. The way Miss Pryde worded it, it was Laura's decision in the end, and she didn't seem too taken with us. Then again, I hadn't been able to read her since we'd met, so what did I know?

"What about Saberwolf?" I asked, getting some looks from my friends, "Hey, he counts, I think. More like an _undercover_ Paladin, but still..."

"Anyway," Miss Pryde said, getting us all back on the main point at hand, "I thought she could look in on what we do at practices. So for today, I want you all to start by working on your timing and team coordination."

We were all fine with that. Eddie in particular was more than ready to show off for the girl he had just met all of three minutes before.

"Normally it's much more awesome than just us practicing in an open field," Eddie said, "We used to have this all-purpose room where anything our teachers could think up could be made. They'd make us fight that stuff. It wasn't real, but it was still cool."

Oh God. He thought she was hot, that much was clear and fair enough, because she was. But when Eddie found himself interested in someone, he had a habit of putting a foot in his mouth. Sure, things started mildly enough, with him just saying more than he needed to, or trying to drop one-liners to make himself look cool, but from there it would only get worse before it got better. Several times since I had shown up at school I had seen this firsthand.

I had to get him to chill before he made more of a fool of himself, "She... she knows, dude," I told him, gesturing with my hands for him to tone it down, "It's cool. She went here. She's not new. Laura knows what the Danger Room is-, err, was," I corrected before turning to Miss Pryde, "Are we ever fixing that, by the way?"

Hisako grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest, "Even if we do, I'm never going back in there," She replied, not that I could blame her.

Things eventually settled into us splitting off and doing our thing with some teamwork drills. Instead of competing against each other over some sort of objective, we chose to work on team moves. The first time we had the opportunity to use anything we had come up with on real enemies had been during Field Day. Now that we knew that they worked, there was no reason not to keep working on them.

Eddie and Hisako eventually broken off to do their own thing. They were the ones that hadn't gotten to put their combination move to the test during the competition.

That left me and Ruth to work together on finding ways to use her telepathy to help all of us in the field. Her coordinating all of us mentally was fine, but what she did in the grand scheme of things was nothing that couldn't be accomplished with a radio. The only difference was that she could see through our eyes and in real time figure out what we were into. That was a big difference, but we could still do better. We just had to figure out how.

"We know you can do brain stuff to get people to do what you want," I told her, remembering how she got Rockslide and Quill to help her fight off the hordes of enemies that came our way in the Danger Room, "What I let you consciously take control of me?"

"No, thank you," Ruth said after taking a moment to think about it, "Bellamy trusts her. She does not want to abuse that trust, no."

She must not have wanted to hurt me, or do something that I was against. I doubted there was anything someone as sweet as her could influence me to do that I wouldn't be willing to do myself. Either way, I had to respect her choice, "Okay. If you're not comfortable with it, I won't press the issue. We'll make something special happen soon. I know it."

Ruth nodded, but seemed a little down. I was serious when I said that everything would come in time, but I hated when I couldn't help her out with things on the spot. A good girl like her deserved better.

Laura sat off to the side, not too far away. Instead of paying attention to what Hisako and Eddie were doing, which was much more aesthetically pleasing than watching me and Ruth do brain stuff, she watched the two of us.

For the sake of getting her up to speed and not leaving her out, I turned her way to explain why we were working out the way we were, "We spend a lot of time working on how to combine our powers," I told her. She hadn't asked, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with explaining how we spent that particular part of our training days, "Eddie and I do this thing where he lifts me up and flies so I can shoot from the air. We call it 'Scorched Earth'."

"That's still a stupid name," Hisako commented from where she and Eddie were working with their move. He would grab onto her from behind and let her activate her armor. That way he could fly while Hisako was powered up. It fixed her mobility problems and gave Eddie some more use in a fight, "Stop naming our moves!"

My jaw dropped. I thought she had gotten over this particular team quirk of ours, judging by what how she told to avoid using the light grenade before the last Field Day event, "What the-? You named the Lux Bomb! I let it stick!"

Damn woman. She liked our team. So why wouldn't she admit when she was going with the group dynamic, "I named it first because you would have called it something stupid instead," She said.

I may or may not have blown off her opinion, "Maybe. But we'll never know," It didn't matter what I would have called it, because it had a name now, thanks to her. No one else. She was clearly missing the point of why we did that in the first place anyway, "Besides, we have to call our stuff something. It's like calling a play in football. How else will we know what we're doing if we don't?"

"It's fine, Bel," Eddie said as he and Hisako drifted over to me and Laura, still holding onto Hisako inside of her armor, "She's still salty from when you named this move the 'Flying Tank'."

Hisako cringed and released her armor, "I _hate_ that we call it that," She said as Eddie set her down on the ground.

I wasn't sorry. That was what it was. She was our 'tank', if one deemed it fit to use gamer terms - the one that absorbed most of the dangerous stuff that came our way. Thus, when she flew, it was a flying tank.

"Anyway, the three of us all have something we can do together," I said, pointing between myself, Hisako, and Eddie, "Ruthie's powers are a little bit harder to work out for team fighting," I admitted, "Sometimes what we come up with works, sometimes it doesn't. The same as anything else."

Eddie massaged his temple as though he felt a migraine coming on, "Remember when we tried shared perspective thing? Where all of us could see what the rest of us were seeing," He recalled, "Ugh. Let's never do that again."

Hisako agreed, but I didn't. I hadn't given up on that idea after the first unpleasant time we had done it with the whole team right from the jump, "It works fine, just not with more than two people," Having Ruthie get a wide view of what we were all doing in a fight while I had the first-person perspective of what I was up to kept me well aware of the situation on the battlefield, "Besides, it's more useful for my powers than it is for any of yours... except maybe Eddie's."

Hey. That was an idea. Eddie could carry Ruth above the battlefield and she could project Eddie's view of what he was seeing back to me, like picture-in-picture, or a heads-up display of a map in a first-person shooter. That would be amazing.

I busied myself thinking through the mechanics of that idea until Miss Pryde called time for the team experimentation phase of our training, "Alright guys, that's enough. Fall in," We did as she asked and she got us on to the next phase of our three hours, "I hope everyone has been keeping up with their self-defense."

"Uuuuugh..." Eddie groaned. Hisako and I laughed while Ruth gave him a pat on the shoulder, "Come on. Isn't there an actual class for that?"

"You mean the one you're not in?" I pointed out, getting a dirty look from him for that. It served him right, "Dude, just fight already. It's like pulling off a band-aid."

"Getting punched in the face is not like pulling off a band-aid," Eddie argued back, "Why don't _you_ just fight already?"

"I do need volunteers since one of you isn't keen on taking part," Miss Pryde said, not so subtly throwing shade Eddie's way. I lifted my hand to accept the challenge/offer, "Okay, Bellamy and... Laura?"

I turned to see that Laura had her hand up much like I did. Well that was a hell of a wrinkle. I expected to get a piece of Hisako. She was usually the one that stepped up to spar with me when it was left up to us to make the matches, so I was used to facing off with her. I hadn't expected Laura to do anything today, let alone volunteer for an exercise on a team she wasn't on.

It didn't matter to me. A fight was a fight, all the same. Though, how she could fight in jeans that tight, I had no idea. She shrugged her way out of the jacket that she wore to the field, leaving her in some awesome mauve corset thing. I could _hear_ Eddie's eyes pop out of his head without even looking back at him. She could be as fine as she wanted to be. If she stepped up to fight me, she was getting a piece of this.

There were certain things that I had a lot of confidence in. Hand-to-hand combat with another student was one of those things for sure. I thought that right up until Miss Pryde told us to get set, "Alright guys, are you ready?"

When I got into my stock-standard kickboxing ready stance, Laura moved into one of her own with a wider base and a much lower center of gravity. Her arms were held wider than my own. Just the way she settled herself into preparation let me know that this wasn't going to be just some cakewalk.

"Fight!"

I didn't move, but she didn't either. Not at first, anyway. I was trying to find something about the way she stood that I could exploit, telltale sign about how she fought. Something. Anything. She must have found it first, because when I didn't move forward, she did. And boy, did she ever.

Laura lunged at me quickly. It almost caught me off-guard, but I was aware enough of her approach that I tried to keep my distance from her with a quick jab, just to get her to back off, maybe test her reflexes. Laura didn't subscribe to the concept of the feeling out process. She moved under my punch and to the side and gave me a shot of her own right under my ribs. It was the best punch anyone our age had hit me with since that one time I sparred with David and he absorbed Mister Logan's combat knowledge.

The air flew right out of me, but I stuck my foot out and tripped her when she tried to dart out of my range. It was an ugly way to try and turn the tide, but I needed something. Laura fell, but rolled through and turned to face me before I could even close the distance between us. She was still in what I felt was a vulnerable position though, so I swung my right leg around into a hard roundhouse kick. She leaned her entire body weight into the side taking the kick. She buckled a little bit, but I didn't knock her down, or even rattle her all that much.

More importantly, it left my leg stuck for a moment. Just a split-second. But when it did, a bolt of memory went through my head from earlier.

" _It will not hurt for long if you put ice on them."_

Remember what Ruth had said earlier, something told me to cover my junk. And thank God I did, because Laura threw a straight punch right at them. I was terrified and angry all at once. Even blocking, I still felt impact. Thankfully, I saw fit to wear a cup underneath my gear. I have no idea why very few others did.

I grit my teeth and spun around in the opposite direction with a spinning back kick on the same leg, but Laura was a machine. She grabbed around my calf and stood up to try and drop an elbow across the side of my knee. I saw her lift the arm and rolled to my back while she still had a hold of me. I was bigger, so I yanked her a step forward, breaking her balance for a moment and kicked up with my free leg. She blocked me, but it was a veritable mule kick with the earth itself giving me leverage. Her feet left the ground for a moment as she flew back, again off-balance.

I could break her guard, with some help, but yes, that was definitely a start. I still hadn't landed anything clean yet, but it was possible.

Turning to my belly, I pushed off with my hands to throw myself forward with momentum. I leaped forward with my fist cocked back. It just felt right, all of my body weight flying forward at a vulnerable target, when again, what Ruth said earlier to me ran through my head.

" _You do not know how to perform a... 'Superman Punch'."_

Oh no. I didn't. And that was what I was doing!

While I had been looking at Laura's disrupted stance, I had been ignoring her eyes. As I jumped at her, I got a look and saw the most predatory shine in them I had seen up until that point. I stopped trying to punch and damn near turtled in midair. Whatever she'd hit me with to try and counter my stupid attack hurt my forearms like hell. When I landed, I knew we were close, so I turned her way and swung an elbow in her direction. She covered up to protect herself and grabbed me inside the elbow with one hand and the back of my head with the other.

I pressed close to her, trying to bully her around by being bigger than her. It had worked before. I didn't expect it to solve all of my problems, but I just wanted some time to think. She fought like a whirlwind, more ferocious than anyone I had ever dealt with. But it was completely controlled. I had to tap into some of my light power to keep up with her. I didn't even want to, it was just out of instinct. We were so close, I wrapped an arm around her waist and grabbed the back of her neck, but from how she had a hold of me, I couldn't throw her away.

She drove the point of her knee into the inside of one of mine. It hurt. I winced. She saw it. I'm sure she heard the grunt I tried my hardest to hold back. In the same motion, she stepped that leg over the outside of the same knee she had hit and turned her hips sharply.

My body went flying over hers. I hit the ground and before I could start trying to scramble to get back up or grab onto her somehow to protect myself, she plopped herself down on my stomach with her butt. Whatever air I had left in my after getting thrown left me when she did that. She jerked my head back and pressed her knuckles to my throat. I knew what that meant and froze.

Miss Pryde knew what it meant too, "Alright, that's enough," Laura immediately stood up off of me and walked away. It was kind of awkward. She didn't even offer to help me up. That was fine. I was just fine laying there, sucking wind back into my lungs, "That was very good Laura."

"Very good?" I heard Hisako whisper from the sidelines, "She just handed Bel his butt on a silver platter."

"No kidding. I've never seen anyone put him away like that," Eddie followed up, "Seriously, can we get her on this team? That was awesome."

Laura just took Miss Pryde's compliment with a simple nod, like it was just an everyday thing. To be fair, it probably was nothing more than a bit of an inconvenience to deal with me, "Bellamy tried to use his reach to keep me away. He gave up too quickly on that strategy once I got past it the first time," She pointed out, "Using his size against a smaller opponent was also a good idea, but he is not good enough at grappling to exploit that advantage properly."

Yeah, yeah, I sucked. Good to know. At least that helped me know what I actually need to work on next, instead of just working on everything at once the way I had been until then. It was always nice to have some kind of focus when you were training, otherwise there was no real point.

Miss Pryde finally walked over to help me up. As I stood, I noticed that she was trying to fight a grin off of her face, "You knew she could to do that," I accused. Not angrily, just more along the lines of asking why the fuck it was necessary to lose to someone like Laura.

"I did," Miss Pryde admitted, patting me on the back and brushing some stray grass and dirt off of me, "I just wanted to make sure you knew that there's always someone out there who could teach you a thing or two. Even someone your own age."

"Noted," I said, and I meant it. I was the leader, so I hadn't thought much on deferring to others on things, but when someone clearly knew more about something than I did, it only made sense, "Though I don't think she's much of the teaching type. That, and she probably won't even join this squad."

She seemed to take that as a challenge, "Really?" She asked me before addressing our guest who was putting her jacket back on, much to Eddie's displeasure, "So Laura, do you think you might like to join the Paladins?"

Laura looked back at Miss Pryde for a moment, her eyes going a bit wide. She looked between Eddie, Hisako, and Ruth, then over to me. That was where she lingered for a moment. I wanted to call her on it or back down, but I just stood there and took it. Maybe I raised an eyebrow, but that was it. Eventually she looked back at Miss Pryde and decided, "Yes."

"Fantastic!" Miss Pryde declared, clapping her hands together. She really did seem pleased, and why not? Laura was money, that much was clear, "I'll let the headmaster know and work with you this afternoon about designing your uniform," She said before turning to me with a smirk. As if anything needed to be said.

She didn't have to be so self-satisfied about it. I was awful at reading other most of the time, not even mentioning those with as few tells as Laura had, "Oh, don't so look so smug. You know I'm not good with people."

XxX

Another day, another lunch period, and I was in desperate need of some sustenance.

"Come on, Wolf. Let's get some food in us."

"I do not require nutrition to survive, Bellamy. You are aware of this."

Yeah, Wolf was with me. It wasn't like he had much else to do.

I had made the rounds talking about how the days had to be so boring for Saberwolf. Some teachers had given me the okay to let him sit in on some classes. He still wasn't a student, even though he could learn, but it was just as well. A giant wolf-bot with a high school diploma would have been weird.

So sometimes he followed me, sometimes he didn't. Other times he would go off to wander campus on his own or go back to my room to game. But he usually met back up with me around lunch, even though he didn't need to eat anything to live.

By then, the rest of the school had gotten used to Saberwolf being around. Plus, he'd gotten a lot of brownie points with the students and the teachers for helping to protect kids from the drones that the Danger Room had taken control of during the Field Day fiasco. He still insisted that he was leaving any day now when he figured out what he wanted to do, but he was starting to get comfortable at the Institute.

"It was suggested by one of the Xavier Institute's staff," Saberwolf said, his feet softly padding off of the tile on the floor as we walked through the cafeteria, "I do not feel comfortable with allowing this Forge individual to check my diagnostics and study me."

And why wouldn't he? It sounded a lot like being taken apart to me. I didn't know if Wolf felt pain or fear, but he had a healthy respect of death, or what equated to death for him.

"Well, you're sentient, so say no," I told him. He hadn't done anything except sleep in my room and play the hell out of my video games. If that was what it took to have him on my side when bad things happened, I'd stick up for him until the end, "I'll throw another shit-fit about it if I have to. I've already got enough beef with the headmistress. I might as well double up and piss off the headmaster too. You know, complete the set."

Wolf took that moment to contemplate his decision to throw his lot in with me, "I do not think staying with you has done much for the outlook that Emma Frost and Cyclops have on me," He said, "Perhaps I should have primarily associated myself with Blindfold instead?"

Not a chance. He was _my_ A.I. pal. "Ah-ah-ah, I'm the first one you saw, and I'm the one who busted you out, so you imprinted onto me... just like a baby duck," I reminded him, dodging a swipe of his tail that was aimed at my head, "Also, Ruthie doesn't have any video games or movies, so you would be bored out of your mind with her."

Sitting down at the table with my friends, I planned to dig into what I had picked up from the lunch line, only for a calculus book to be dropped right in front of me, turned right to the page that we were supposed to be using for homework that night.

I looked next to me where Hisako had plopped down, her own book open and at the ready. She didn't say anything, just sitting there staring at me. I had indeed asked her to help me figure out how to do things in that class so I could stop trying so hard and coast like I did through every other course I had.

"Now?" I asked her, still holding the burger I had picked up in my hand, "You want to do this now?" I was not in the mood to do work.

Hisako was patient, yet seemed to know that she was challenging my deep-rooted lazy bone, "You asked me to help. Do you really want to waste our free time studying, or do you just want to get it out of the way?" She had a point, but it was hard to get motivated for things that I wanted no part of.

"You know what? You're right. Lets get it out of the way then," I said, taking a bite of my sandwich before setting it aside to get to work.

The smile she gave me was probably the nicest one I had gotten from her since we'd met, "You see how easy things can be when you don't try to be a smartass about everything?"

Saberwolf took that moment to chime in, "Times like these without hearing his retorts are encouraging. I sometimes wonder if he is physically capable of holding himself back."

Hisako spared Wolf an understanding glance before grinning back at me, "See? Me and the wolf-bot agree on something. That has to tell you something."

"I am an A.I.," Wolf corrected gently, but otherwise left it alone. He must have been getting used to the mistake.

There was an 'Asians are good at math' joke right on the tip of my tongue to respond with, but I thought better of it. Hisako was being nice and actually helping me with my calculus. Antagonizing her just for the sake of argumentative banter would have been a real prick move, no matter how fun it was to take shots at each other. After all, I was trying to be a better person, no matter what my instinct to respond was.

As the lunch period dragged on and the answers spilled out onto my pages, the desire to run my mouth increased, "You know, I was fine with math, until I got past algebra," I said, "Why couldn't things stay that simple? Algebra was just mad libs with numbers."

Hisako busied herself with doing her own homework while she waited on me to finish my problem or get as far as I could so she could check it, "It's supposed to make it easier to deal with bigger sums of money, more people dealing with the money, getting a piece and all that," She explained, "Why'd you even take the class?"

"I needed a math course. Trust me, if I could stay away from numbers, I would," I said, as Ruth made her way over to our table and sat down. An idea immediately hit me, "Ruthie, have I told you today that you're my favorite Paladin?"

Ruth held her hands up as though she were putting some distance between me and what she could tell I wanted, "Sorry. She will not help you cheat in your calculus class. Thank you."

Oh well. It was worth a try.

Eddie slid into his seat across the table, the legs of the chair screeching off of the floor. He distracted me, but to be fair a squirrel running around outside within sight of the window probably could have distracted me, "Poor ol' Bel, getting his ass handed to him by the new girl and now he can't handle his math."

I let out a groan. He had brought it up repeatedly since it had happened the day before. Any excuse to punch holes in my inflated ego, "I couldn't make out an opening, I swear," I tried to tell them. Fighting Laura had been like fighting an illustration out of a 'how-to' martial arts text... only in real life, shaped like a girl, and with claws, "The only openings I found were the ones I made."

With the shift in topics, Hisako took a look around the cafeteria trying to spot our teammate, "Now that we're talking about it, where is Laura anyway?" Even if she had chosen to sit by herself or somewhere else, we should have been able to spot her somewhere.

It was a good question. I hadn't seen her since the day before, which was odd, seeing as how I saw everyone else multiple times through the day, "I don't know. I don't have any classes with her," I focused on Hisako and Ruth, "You guys stay in the girl dorms, not us. Do you know where she is?"

"I don't even know where her room is, or if she's even rooming with anybody," Hisako said with a shrug of her shoulders, "I didn't see her after Miss Pryde took her to get her uniform designed."

I could already tell it was going to be tough getting Laura on the same page as everyone else, but things like this would just make it more difficult. For starters, none of us even knew how to find her if we needed to. That was a problem for obvious reasons. Hell, we couldn't even get her to sit with us during lunch to try and get her integrated with us. Rome wasn't built in a day though. Miss Pryde said before that I was patient. We would see how far that extended. Making sure everything was alright with my team was a big deal to me, and that included Laura now.

Besides, it was clear that she was well worth the effort that getting on her good side would be. I would find out all of the particulars later. If Miss Pryde didn't know, Mister Logan would. There was a chance he would be unwilling to come off of the information, but if I could goad him into some spars he'd let me know after slapping me around a bit. I clearly still needed the practice anyway.

XxX

The gym was something of a sanctuary for me. There was nothing to do there, but move heavy things, which didn't exactly require a lot of attention. Some of my best thinking was done while lifting a heavy metal object.

Squats were good for that sort of thing. You just went down and stood back up. So simple. All you had to do was keep your posture straight, which was something you really didn't have to think about when you were used to doing them. Even putting on and taking off weight didn't require much more thought than basic addition and subtraction.

I guess the grind helped pump blood to my brain or something. I seemed to think better when I was doing something strenuous. Perhaps bringing my calculus homework to the gym would have been productive.

I was interrupted from my sense of inner peace by the voice of Santo, which actually made it through the earbuds I had playing music.

"Think you're so great, Marcher?" I heard him say from across the room, "How 'bout this?"

I set the weight back on the rack and looked over to where Santo was benching six tons of weight in the superhuman part of the gym.

The louder members of the Hellions still had beef with me, but mostly on a rivalry level at this point. My attempts to make peace from earlier in the semester, and standing to fight with Julian in the Danger room did a lot to help with that.

Was there still some heat? No, not with most of them. And even with Julian, well, it wasn't scalding.

I toweled myself off and watched Santo do his thing with the controlled weights. I was a bit jealous to see him throw around so much. Even with my powers, I could only lift so much, "Well, I'm not made of rock, so..." I commented, "Still, good on you. Wait. Do you even have muscles to build?"

Santo shrugged, even as he was lifting thousands of pounds over his body, "Beats me."

Damn. I should have figured a guy like Santo wouldn't even have thought about whether or not he was getting any stronger lifting all of that crap. Hell, he wasn't even struggling. How much could he even lift?

I hung around by the big rock boy, taking a moment to catch my breath while he finished his set, "So I heard you guys got a new teammate," Santo said, trying to make some conversation, "She hot?"

What a familiar question. I got the feeling that I was going to hear that a lot until most people were introduced to Laura proper, "Did you talk to Eddie?"

"Hell yeah," Santo said, benching his weight and sitting up from the machine he had been on, "Wing won't shut up about it. No one's seen her yet though. I'm starting to think she's imaginary."

I was more or less done, and Santo seemed to be too, as we started heading for the doors together, "No, she's real. She's legit too."

Towering over me, Santo looked over my way with a huge grin, "Yeah, I heard she kicked your ass too, no powers."

Of course he would have heard about that too. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone hadn't heard about it by now. People seemed to take delight in me losing to other people at things. I guess I was easy to root against.

"I told you, she's legit," I said, trying to justify my loss. I didn't think there was another student in the entire school that could beat Laura in pure hand-to-hand, "I wouldn't roll over and say I'd lose to just anyone. When you're good, you're good."

"Right. Well we'll just see how good when team competitions start again," Santo said leaving me alone as I headed off to the showers. It wasn't like he needed to wash off any sweat. He was made of rock, "Julian still wants a piece of you. Something about not wanting to let you think you're too badass or something."

I put my hands over my heart mockingly as I backed into the locker room, "So Hellion thinks I'm badass. That just made my day!"

Santo wasn't really a bad guy. He was just the walking epitome of meathead jock. Never had I met someone with powers so appropriate to who they were as a person. Still, if you knew how to handle those types of people, they were fine.

I had pissed off all kinds of folks in my time, so picking up on personality traits was a thing I could do. Knowing how to deal with those traits was something else entirely though. It usually took me a while to figure out how to go about getting on with others.

Which was what worried me about Laura. I hadn't figured out what kind of person she was yet. I had no experience with anyone like her before, and I wanted to make her feel welcome.

Not welcome enough to confront me in the boys' locker room, but still...

"Holy shit!" I changed clothes, and after I pulled my shirt over my head, she was right there, "Hooo. What? You-? Laura, what the hell?" I needed a moment to let my heart rate lower, "Woman, I almost shot you. Don't sneak up on me," I didn't think it needed to be said to not follow me into certain places, yet there she stood.

Laura didn't seem too concerned with potentially eating a light blast for scaring me, "You were looking for me, weren't you? I did not wish to interrupt your workout, or your conversation with Rockslide oncw you were done."

Weird circumstances aside, I got over her presence quickly, "You're my teammate, you can interrupt me whenever you want," I told her before putting on a smirk, "You know, unless I was with a girl or something. Then use discretion," She just stared back at me, clearly not enjoying my brand of humor, "That was a joke... kind of."

"I know. I just did not find it funny."

Ouch.

"Well, I do want to talk to you. But this isn't the best place for it," I turned to my locker and went to grab my bag out of there, "So if you can get out without letting anyone see you, we can go somewhere and-," By the time I turned back around, ready to go, Laura was already gone, "...Gonna have to get used to that."

When I stepped out of the locker room, I looked around for any sign of Laura. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that she would have waited for me right outside, but this wasn't the case. I was ready to go on the hunt for her and started checking out the hallways. After circling the sub-basement level, I gave up and started heading for the elevator. Maybe I would have better luck on the upper floors.

On my way to the elevator, I came across two members of the Paragons squad. Megan and Hope. Even though the Paladins and the Paragons had it out for a bit during the Field Day finale, we were still on good terms. Their team was nice, and they didn't seem to hate me, which was also nice.

"Oh! There he is!" Megan seemed excited to see me, which was a real pick-me-up, "He's actually down here. Hi, Bel!"

Hope gave Megan a soft elbow in the side, "And you thought you missed your chance at lunch. All we had to do was ask someone where he was."

I certainly felt popular. First Laura now Megan and Hope. Everyone seemed to want a piece of me, which in this instance was something I could get behind, "Hey, girls. Were you looking for me?" I asked with an honest-to-goodness smile.

I liked Megan. She was a total sweetheart. A real positive person. At a time when most of the people my age were self-centered, moody tools (myself included, don't worry), it was nice to come across someone who was so uncompromisingly upbeat.

That was when Megan's demeanor changed. She stood in front of me, wringing her hands uncomfortably. Was I scaring her or something? I did have resting asshole face, which was the male equivalent of resting bitch face. A lot of people usually thought I was pissed, even when I tried to be pleasant. Honestly, even if I seemed mad all of the time, I really wasn't!

"No. Yes," She backtracked. Her wings drooped a bit as she tried to settle on one or the other, "Well, kind of. You see, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I didn't want to bother you if you weren't in the mood. Not that I'm saying you're grumpy or anything, even though you seem kind of grumpy a lot of the time!" Megan kept rambling. From her body language, I could tell she knew she was talking too much and getting way off-track, but still couldn't help herself.

Thankfully, Hope stepped in to keep her from going on and on, "Anyway, Megan just wanted to ask if you were doing anything Friday afternoon. A few of us are heading into town to hang out, and we thought, Bellamy's a nice guy. Plus, we owe him one. _Right,_ Pixie?" She said, trying to lead her friend along in the conversation.

"R-Right!" Megan said with a much more confident smile, "You saved me in the Danger Room. And you did keep me from looking silly after... you know," At the wake. I remembered. She didn't need to say anymore about it, and she definitely didn't have to give me any credit for that. I wasn't a bad enough guy to ignore someone who came to me crying, "You helped a lot, and I'd like to say thank you, if that's okay."

I waved off part of what she said, "You don't have to thank me for anything, but I'd love to hang out," I made sure to specify. I rarely got to spend any time with anyone. A lot of my spare time was spent gaming, or binging on Netflix and Hulu with Saberwolf, "Yeah, that sounds great, actually. Count me in."

Hope gave Megan a good shake. Both of them seemed happy with me agreeing to go, which was nice, "Great! We'll meet up at the shuttle at 4:00, if that works for you."

"Can do. It's gonna be a good time," I said before waving goodbye to head off my own way, "Catch you guys later."

Even as I moved away, I could still hear the two of them talking among themselves, "That's so great!" Hope said,in more of a stage whisper than an actual one, "You see? I told you he'd say yes. Bel's not some intense, scary guy. He's really nice."

Megan shot back, sounding no less enthused about everything, "I knew that already! Still, he might have said no to me."

My ego was inflated more than a zeppelin. I stopped just short of clicking my heels in the air when I made it into the elevator heading to the ground floor of the Institute, because that shit wasn't cool. I wasn't going on a date, not really, seeing as how I wasn't going to be alone with a girl, but I was asked to do something away from the school... by a girl. That counted for partial credit, didn't it?

"Do you wish to speak now?"

I jumped halfway across the elevator when my newest teammate seemed to come out of nowhere all over again. I had nearly forgotten that she was around, "Damn it, Laura," Did she not make footsteps when she walked? It didn't make any sense how someone could have _no_ presence unless they wanted to, "I said don't scare me anymore. You don't have to do that."

"You just said not to interrupt you when you were talking to a girl," She reasoned with a shrug, "I was by the elevators and waited until you were finished."

Fair enough. Megan had enough trouble talking to me with Hope backing her up. If Laura had been lingering around nearby staring a hole through her, she probably would have just scared her, as unintentional as it would have been.

I got myself back together quickly enough, trying to look all composed and leader-like. I doubted it did much to get any of Laura's respect, "I just wanted to see how you were doing, how you were setting in, things like that."

She tilted her head to the side, as if she were questioning what I wanted, "Why?"

Laura looked at me as though she were waiting for a catch. I couldn't believe it. Did she really not get it? It made no sense to me, "You're my teammate. That means I'm supposed to have your back, support you, all of that good stuff."

Little Miss Loner didn't want any part of that though, "There is no need. I will adapt," She said, "Thank you for your concern, though."

I looked up at the sky for a split-second as if to ask God him or herself, 'really?' Laura was really going to make me work for this one. Well she needed to know I meant what I said, and I that I was in for the long-haul, "Got a new phone yet?" I asked. She nodded and handed it over when I asked, albeit hesitantly. I quickly put my contact info in there, "Here. My number's in here now. If you do need something or want to talk, just give me a call or come to my room. I don't really sleep, so anytime is fine."

Getting a real conversation or some kind of rapport with her was going to take time. I wasn't going to rush it. Clearly it wasn't going to happen overnight, so I would keep chipping away at it. I wasn't going anywhere, and hopefully neither was she.

I gave her back the phone and patted her on the shoulder. I didn't even hit her with any force. I just made solid contact... you know, just letting her know I was there. She flinched – hard. She didn't think I was going to do something to hurt her, did she?

Laura got away from me quickly. I couldn't put the two parts of her together. Even from the one time when we were sparring, in a fight she was confident, angry and intense. It was a night and day difference from how she was at any other time. She was awkward. She seemed scared to even make the effort to interact with anyone on the team.

I sighed and headed back to my room, "...Leader problems..." I muttered.

* * *

 **Damn it, there are so many things I need to do, and there's no time to do it all. Never have I missed not having any responsibilities more than I do now. I want to wrestle, write my book, do my podcast with my Fandom Flux peeps (now available for your weekly consumption on Youtube), play games like Horizon... all that good stuff.**

 **...But there aren't enough hours in the day, children. There just aren't.**

 **Alright, enough of that noise. You don't care. The chapter is done, and a sense of normalcy is starting to settle back in. But how long will it last? And what will screw over the peace next?**

 **Eh, we'll see.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. I'll be back eventually with more stuff. Kenchi out.**


	13. Never Good Enough

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. It's a good thing Cinco de Mayo was right after May 4th, aka Star Wars day. If I had to hear one more stupid forced Star Wars joke, I was going to punch a hole in the wall.

 **Chapter 13: Never Good Enough**

* * *

Some days, nothing happens. People bitch about those days all the time. Let me tell you something right now. Cherish those days. Those are the good days. The good old, boring days.

Boring is safe. Boring doesn't scare you to death. Boring doesn't have you walking into the common area of the dorms on a given afternoon, staring at a big screen TV turned up high with some Indian scientist lady announcing to the world that she had come up with the 'cure' to the 'mutant condition'.

" _The mutant strain can be eliminated, safely and irreversibly. There is such a thing as a second chance."_

Those were the words that came out of her mouth. Those were the words that went across the world at the exact same time, on stations where everyone could see it. Words that would be replayed for days as soundbites on CNN, BBC, and other major news sources, right down to the local news station in every hometown imaginable. It was a good quote.

I knew this, because it scared almost everyone in the room shitless when they heard it.

"That's so messed up," Eddie stared at the news with an interest I had never seen him have before, "Bel, that's not-. It can't be serious, right?"

I didn't know how to respond to him. Clearly it was a big deal to him. Hell, it was a big deal in general, but no one was holding me down and injecting that crap into my veins yet, so it seemed too far away to be something that affected me, "It's on the air right now, so this is either a really elaborate prank that CBS News is running with, or this is the real-deal."

"I'm being serious, man," Eddie said, not appreciating my detached demeanor to the situation. He was terrified, "They can't actually... _make_ that, can they? Doesn't that kind of thing have to be approved by the FDA or something?

"Yeah right," Julian scoffed, turning his attention away from the news conference on the TV. We had heard all we needed to from the doctor lady on the screen, "You seriously think they're not going to try and use it on us the first chance they get?"

"Who's they, Hellion?" I asked, not really caring about the answer. Whoever came to get some would come when we didn't expect it, no matter who or what they were, so it didn't matter.

Julian looked at me like I was an idiot. He hadn't done that in a while, "You can't be serious," He said. My expression asked for him to enlighten me, "The humans. The government. Either-or, probably both. It's just a matter of time. They're calling this thing the cure, and it gets rid of the X-Gene, so what does that make us, the disease?"

I could tell when someone was about to jump on their soapbox, and that was the last thing I wanted to spend my afternoon listening to and dealing with for the rest of the day. Plus, there were a bunch of others in the room who all looked just as spooked as Eddie. Not good.

"Hold that thought," I said, cutting Julian off at the pass, "Okay, I can see you're pissed. So I want you to take that anger, bottle it up, wait until people are storming the gates, and then you can cuss me out and say 'I told you so.' And it'll either be the best feeling in the world, or you'll get some ulcers from keeping it inside for that long."

Julian crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me testily, "And when that happens are you actually gonna do anything? Or are you just gonna be a pussy and let the flatscans walk all over you?"

I gave the telekinetic a dry look in return. It wasn't worth getting riled up over, "I'm gonna shoot 'em all in the fucking face like I did the first time, and the second time," I said, ticking off glowing fingers with each number. It was at that moment that I finally stopped and took note of how much I seemed to get in life-or-death situations with ornery humans, "Oh sweet Jesus, I've actually done this twice already."

He seemed pacified by the realization that I had indeed kicked the shit out of people for trying to victimize poor little mutant Bellamy. Maybe he had a point about the humans coming to get us thing? History did not look upon them favorably in that regard. But to be fair though, those were public hate groups and paramilitary outfits that I had the experiences with... which meant even worse things for when it actually happened again. Shit.

Goddamn it, I just wanted to relax after squad practice and binge some 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' on Netflix with my homeboy. Was that too much to ask? Now who was going watch it with me? Eddie wasn't game anymore. Who would want to laugh after being scared to death?

XxX

Late nights were always a bother, because I couldn't ever sleep. It was easier to deal with though, now that I had a roommate. Wolf didn't _need_ to sleep regular hours to recharge, so long as he did every so often. That meant he was up to humor me whenever I decided to stay in my room during one of my insomnia kicks.

Mostly because humoring me meant beating the breaks off of me in video games.

"You suck, Wolf," I snapped as an insult. I wanted to get him mad so he'd screw up. Not so easy.

Wolf didn't even flinch, "Judging by the player vs. player record between the two of us, I would say otherwise," He knew that losing was worse for me than anything I could say or do to him at that moment.

"You play like a pussy," I said, trying again. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough salt in my verbiage to make him care.

"You are overaggressive in your offense," Wolf declared, caring nothing for my insults. He knew that my losing was worse to me than anything I would actually be willing to say to him, "If you pressured your opponents less, and learned how to wait for mistakes to be made, you would likely fare better in multiplayer."

"But forcing people to panic is so satisfying," I said, before I felt something click after the words I said, "Wow... I think that might be how I actually fight in real life too. Explains a lot, actually."

"And how does that work for you?" Wolf said, adding on to his own point, "Against an enemy you cannot frighten into making rash mistakes, you leave yourself too open by constantly moving forward. A savvy warrior will capitalize."

Wolf was good at analysis. Really good. In fact, I took cues from improving on the way I did things in fights from him. More than I did from teachers, really. A lot of the time they would tell me what I did wrong, but he would offer suggestions on the spot. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. But constantly trying to fix what I did wrong kept others off of my ass.

As we went through the character select screen again to prepare for our latest match-up, I felt the need to mess with him a bit more, "You know, if you didn't care, you wouldn't correct me when I screw up."

"Your continued survival is beneficial to me, Bellamy Marcher. It is only a rule of nature that I would seek to keep you well when you have shown a desire to work for my benefit," He said, trying to make things as logical as possible, "Also, I do not dislike you."

"Can you not be a douche and just admit that we're friends already?"

"No."

I flicked him on the side of my head. It hurt, but I got a decent 'tink' sound off of him, so it was worth it to me, "You see? That's why you're not a Paladin. You can't even pretend that you like me," I said, trying to be funny, "I mean, yeah, Laura doesn't like me either, but she's new. If I give her some time, maybe I can win her over. At least she has a reason. I got you out of that bunker and you don't like me. I probably just made a bad impression on her, so that's why she doesn't like me."

Speak of the devil, and she shall appear. From behind the two of us, out of nowhere, Laura spoke, "I also do not dislike you, Bellamy."

She had not been invited. She had not been present. Neither of us even knew she was there until she said something. Both of us jumped up and turned around, "Holy shit! Wolf, chill!" I said before he could extend the claws on his feet or grab his chainsaw from the open compartment on his back. He calmed down and let me focus back on Laura, "How long have you been in here? Actually, how did you get in here?"

I could have sworn I'd told her not to scare me anymore. Earlier that evening, in fact. That meant announcing your presence in some kind of way. Then again, I also said she could come to my room anytime.

Laura eyed Saberwolf warily until she realized that I had some kind of influence over him and that he wouldn't attack her. Good. I didn't need them destroying my room, "I have not been here for long. Maybe two minutes."

I noticed that she didn't answer my second question. Whatever. I would figure it out on my own later. "How did you not even know she was in the room?"

"I must actively be seeking mutants to locate them," Wolf explained, sitting down on his mechanical haunches once everything had calmed down, "It is not an ability that I use in passing. I must activate it myself."

"Oh. Neat," I said. I tossed the controller in my hand over onto my bed and walked up to Laura. I was a full foot taller than her, but I didn't feel like it. Not only had she crept up on me in my own room, without even trying, if it came to straight-up physicality, she would probably have manhandled me in a heartbeat, "So what can your oh-so-humble team leader do for you? Need a nightlight or something?" I asked, making a show to glow for a moment as I did.

Communication was not Laura's strong-suit – it was clear that she was struggling – but I had to give her efforts for trying. "You said if I wanted to talk, or if I had a question, that I could come to you," She said, "I wanted to ask, what is the composition of the Paladins?"

There was a real curiosity in the tone of her question, as though it were a subject that had been bothering her, and I had a satisfying answer. I didn't, "What are you talking about?"

Her brow furrowed, a touch of frustration seeping into her expression, "Why is our team set up in the way that it is?"

From the little that I'd picked up on Laura since meeting her, she knew her shit. I mean as far as fighting and strategy, at least the concepts. It was intimidating to think that this person was my age. She didn't leave anything for granted. If there was something she didn't know and it involved her in one way or another, she wanted to be caught up to speed.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the answers she seemed to be after, "I don't know. They just put us together. I think Ruth told Miss Pryde to add me onto the team, but other than that, we just got stuck with each other."

"Exactly," Laura replied, sounding frustrated. She had come to the same conclusion, but it didn't seem logical to her, "The team makeups do not make sense. It is difficult for me to see a tactical reasoning for how they are divided up, with the exception of one or two student pairings on every team. This one is no different. Our abilities as a unit do not mix."

"Well, yeah, that would be nice. But I don't think that's such a big deal," I could admit that she had a point. It was a pain in the butt trying to figure out how to work together with what all of us could do. But we were getting along somehow. I liked my team, "How we got together doesn't matter. All that matters is that we are now."

She stared me down before shaking her head, "That is foolish."

It was like she tried to understand my point of view, but just couldn't. That gave me a measure of hope, "Hopefully you'll understand, eventually," I was starting to feel better about finding ways to get her integrated with the team. I just had to convince her to spend more time with us. Break her of her loner streak, "Until then, since you're here, do you want to play something?"

She followed my finger as I pointed to the TV and then moved back over to my bed to grab my controller, "It is late. We have classes in the morning," She reasoned with me, "It would be a better idea to rest."

I waved her off while Saberwolf retook his position at the side of my chair. He shook himself out before sitting down, clearly ready to continue playing, "I can't sleep unless I'm hurt or I really burn myself out during the day. Part of my powers. That makes nighttime boring. But, at least it gives me a lot of time to practice on things."

"And yet, he is still subpar at many games," Wolf chimed in.

"You practice when I'm not here," I replied to the chippy A.I., before trying to hand off the controller to Laura, "Seriously though, do you want to take a crack at him? I'm tired of losing tonight," I offered, mostly to get out of taking constant beatdowns from Wolf. We only ever played what he wanted to play. If it was something I was better at, he never wanted to touch it.

She tentatively took the controller from me and sat down in the chair, "I do not know how to play."

I plopped down face-first on my bed in the direction of the TV and got myself settled in to watch, "Trust me, Wolf will be happy to whoop your ass until you figure it out. We've got all night."

I wasn't going to be able to fix much of anything in one night, but with enough time, I could try putting some dents in the formidable fortress that was Laura's personality.

XxX

Friday was a short day, or at least it felt that way. Classes were the conventional Friday slog of most of my teachers trying to get us through to the weekend. More than usual actually, as we didn't even have any evening practice. Miss Pryde had to go with the X-Men to investigate something, so training was canceled.

I felt relieved all day. That meant there was less of a chance that I would show up to my planned outing later that day without being all beaten up. And speaking of my planned outing, I kind of had to let my team know where I was going to be.

"You're doing 'what'?" Eddie seemed out of sorts at the news, seemingly unable to accept it, "Bel, you've got a date? How? When? Where was I for this?" This seemed to be important to him for some reason. At least enough to raise a fuss over, which in all reality didn't take much. My boy was the bombastic sort.

I guided him back down into his lunchroom seat with one hand to get him out of my face. He was far too close, "Not working out, like you always are. Hit the gym and maybe you'll be around for more of my better moments," I did tend to make more of an ass of myself around others than when I was alone.

"Pixie asked him out, apparently," Hisako said, gesturing my way with her fork as she finished chewing her bite of food, "She was asking about what you like earlier today. I told her that I didn't know. I said you hate most things."

Wow. Way to make me look less than great. Probably for the laughs. Truth be told, I probably would have done something similar, "Thanks. Really. I'll remember that when some guy comes asking around about you," I told her.

Hisako grinned and leered at me from across the table, "What's wrong? Afraid you'll scare her off?"

She was picking on me, but was closer to the mark than she figured she was, "Yes," I said bluntly.

My stark admission caught her off-guard. Her and everyone else at the table, "Wait, really? Why? You're not _that_ much of an asshole," It was as close to a compliment as I could normally expect from Hisako.

As confusing as it was for them, it was hard for me to put it into words. School, fighting, and missions were easy. There was something straightforward that you needed to do, and you did it. That was it. Give me an objective and an obvious goal and I was all over it. Anything that took more subtlety, and I'd overthink it and have more trouble. All the variables of dealing with people was way more complicated for me, and that was without ever getting into the whole dating thing.

Eventually, I just decided to go with that as an explanation. It was a sound enough reason by itself, "It's hard to say. I don't know how to explain it. I just feel like I'd be a crappy boyfriend," I said, stopping when I saw the look on Hisako's face. It was one shared by Eddie as well, "Hey, what's with those faces? I'm being serious."

Eddie and Hisako looked at each other before she gestured to him to speak up for the both of them, "No, I know. It's just you actually admitted that you might be bad at something. You never do that," He said.

Did I really come off as arrogant enough to imply that I didn't make mistakes? I didn't mean to. That was damnably inaccurate if that were the case, "I know I'm bad at stuff. I just never talk about the things I'm bad at. Accentuate the positives, hide the negatives."

Eddie waved his hands in a calming gesture, "Dude, it's fine. Just... don't be you."

I felt my eyebrow raise, wondering what exactly that meant, "Don't be me?" As opposed to being someone else?

Eddie nodded, fully willing to double down on what he'd just said to me, "Not all at first. Too much asshole-Bel right off the bat is overwhelming. Tell him, Hisako."

Hisako scoffed, "What do you mean 'right off the bat'? I still want to kill him sometimes."

Ruth giggled and gave me a pat on the arm, "Yes, Bellamy is an acquired taste," Even she got into picking on me too. It was the thing to do. I got no respect from my team whatsoever, I tell you.

Eddie flicked a napkin Ruth's way in response, "Right. A taste it took you all of ten seconds to acquire. He's always nice to _you,"_ He pointed out.

I shot the napkin out of the air with a finger laser. It burned to nothing before it could touch back down onto anything. I hoped it looked as cool to other people as it did to me, "I'm always nice to her because she's the only one of you who actually respects me," I said, leaning back in my chair to get an unobstructed view of Ruth, "You respect me, right?" She gave me a big smile and a nod, "Damn straight."

Eddie slapped his hand down on the table hard. He almost scared me into falling onto the floor, "You see? That right there. That's almost fine. Almost where you need it to be. Tone it down a bit, and you should be okay," He said enthusiastically.

Hisako nodded and followed up, "Girls eat it up when you're a little earnest. If you walk around with an ego the size of a zeppelin, it's not really a turn-on when they're around you longer than five minutes," She actually had real advice to give, and she seemed to mean completely well for once, "There's a time and a place for everything. Just think before you say something and you'll be fine."

Wow. That was really nice. It was probably ranked top five in the list of nice things she had ever said to me up to that point. Granted, off the top of my head, it's really hard to think of the other four. It meant a lot though. The squad had my back, and if that was the case, how could I ever consider failing? Not literally in this case, because none of them were going. But they had my back in spirit, and that was almost as good.

...Not really. Moral support wasn't good enough for this. I was not about to face down the whole Paragons squad for what amounted to a supervised date all by my lonesome. It would have to do though. It wasn't like I could just bring someone else on the Paladins at the last moment.

I would have asked Eddie, but he had detention for calling Miss Pryde a retard sometime earlier that day. I have no idea what the context was. I didn't want to know when I found out about it.

Besides, even if I could convince one of them to go with me, that would have been a wuss thing to do. And I was no wuss.

XxX

It was weird walking into something I was nervous about alone. Ever since I'd come to Xavier's, I'd had the Paladins with me. That had either inspired me to nut up and be brave, or fake it as much as possible to keep their spirits up.

This was not the same thing. I tried to keep in mind that a date was just hanging out, only with a girl who might be interested in letting you play with her boobs if she thought well enough of you.

...

No, that just made things worse. The pressure of getting laid or looking like a dork would be far more intense if that were my mindset.

As I made my way to the shuttle that would take us into Salem Center proper, I decided to just let things end us as they would. My friends had a point, I tended to make bad first impressions, but I'd been around the Paragons team plenty, and I didn't annoy them to death yet. I'd give it time though.

It was bright out, and getting warmer to boot. The sun beat down on my back, though my hat kept most of the light out of my face... as though that mattered. Spring Break was right around the corner, and it couldn't have come soon enough. After what had happened on campus recently, a lot of kids that could go home probably needed to, to let their parents know that they were okay. To unwind a bit. It all sounded good to me.

Speaking of unwinding, I saw the Paragons coming my way to the shuttle stop. A group with a werewolf kid, a guy with a flaming head, and a girl with bright butterfly wings was pretty easy to spot from far off. I gave a wave and Megan left her feet to fly over to me, "Bel! Hi! We didn't keep you waiting, did we?"

If the brightness of a smile equaled actual light, there had been enough in hers to charge me straight to overload, "Nah. I'm just chilling. Soaking in the sun. People-watching. You know, all that good stuff."

"People-watching?" Hope said disbelievingly as the others approached, "Around here?"

I scoffed at her skepticism, "You tell me one better place in the world to people-watch than Xavier's," I challenged jokingly.

It was a rhetorical question, but Hope rose to the challenge regardless, "Mutant Town," She said, looking very pleased with her quick answer.

That was actually a good response. It was like my answer, just on steroids, "Fuck. I've got to go back to New York soon then. That actually sounds awesome."

"It does?" Nicky asked, "I'd have figured you weren't much for dealing with people."

So it was obvious enough that even people on another squad could see it. That was sort of embarrassing. Hopefully I didn't come off as socially awkward or anything, "I'm not a people-person," I tried to defend, "That doesn't mean I don't like people. It just means they don't like me."

"Well, I like you," Megan said all of a sudden before realizing what she had blurted out. Her face turned beet red, "I mean, I'm so glad you could actually come with us today! This is gonna be great!"

As someone who said the wrong thing all the time, I respected her quick attempt to run damage control. Because of that and the advice I'd gotten from my friends to be less like myself at first to try and make a good impression, I let it slide, "Of course I made it. I told you I would. There was absolutely no reason not to. I told you last night, it sounded like a good time."

Hope nearly jumped on Megan's back, wrapping an arm around her shoulder to pinch her cheek, "You should have seen her, Bel. She was so excited all night and all day today after you said yes. I thought she was going to tire herself out before classes even let out."

Megan tried so hard to wiggle her way out, but Hope's grip was tight, "Hope, shut up!" She yelled at her friend. When she turned to me, her eyes seemed to be pleading not to take it seriously, "Don't listen to her, Bellamy. She's just picking on me."

"But you make it so easy," Hope said before finally letting her go, but not without a parting shot, "Don't worry. I'm sure Bel will be super-nice to you if you ask him."

I looked over at Nicky and Ben. Nicky just grinned at me with his super-sharp teeth, while Ben just rolled his eyes. Well that settled that. I wasn't going to be getting much help from either of them for different reasons. Nicky seemed to be enjoying the whole thing, while Ben just seemed like he had better things to do than to humor the situation at-hand.

"Can we get going?" Ben said, pointing at his wrist where he was wearing a watch, "If the shuttle leaves and we have to wait on the next one, that'd put a real damper on the start of the weekend."

True enough, the bus sat waiting. It had pulled up while we were all saying hello. Well, it was time to get the show on the road.

XxX

For a small place, Salem Center had a pretty nice town square area. All the good stuff there was to offer was located in that area, so it was the only spot in Salem Center anyone went to... which kind of fit the name, to be honest.

I was used to San Francisco, where I could find and do anything I wanted if I knew where to look. By comparison, Salem Center was… quaint. Quaint is a nice word isn't it? Let's go with quaint.

Even so, I paid attention to every storefront we stopped in front of that got the girls' attention. I kept every store that they went into in the back of my mind. Every place to eat that got a comment as we walked past and got a whiff of the cooking inside, I catalogued.

The reason she had asked me to go with everybody else hadn't just been to create a gigantic buffer between the two us being alone. We didn't really know the first thing about what the other liked. If there was going to be an actual date, as in just the two of us, anytime in the future, it would have been best to be armed with some kind of personal knowledge going in.

That was way more foresight than I'd ever given the idea of a date. Fortunately, I was good at retaining information. If this had been Megan's doing, I had to give her more credit in finding a work-around to her nerves than I did. If it had been Hope's handiwork, I had to question what kind of evil mastermind rested within the Paragons squad.

She was getting annoyed though. I could see that, and she wasn't even the reason I was there. No matter what we went to go do or see, Megan kept one body between herself and me. She must really have thought there was something scary about me.

Nicky and Ben had stuck around for a little while, but wound up fucking off to the arcade after we had eventually passed it. I had no interest. Any game in there wouldn't have been better than what I could get for my consoles and PC at home. I played games enough on my own time. There was no appeal to doing it while I was out. Besides, I was much more in the mood to try my luck hanging out with girls.

As I walked down the street, I felt my hat get lifted off of my head. I growled and glared over at the person responsible, one Hope Abbott, "Do you mind? I could tell you where I get mine if you want your own so bad."

"Oh calm down, it's fine," She said, waving the hat in front of me before moving it out of my grasp, "Tell the truth. You're trying to turn the whole bucket hat look into a thing, aren't you?" She needled, just before it was snatched from her, "Hey."

Megan took my hat into her hands and looked down at it for a moment before she handed it back to me, "Well I think it works for him."

I properly adjusted my hat back onto my head and smoothed the brim back out, "The reason I wear hats is so I don't absorb every drop of light that's beamed my way," I said, making sure to give a thankful wink to Megan as I kept speaking, "The fact that I make these look good is an added bonus."

Megan slid herself back onto the other side of Hope, away from me. Damn it. Still?

"Okay, I'm starving. Do you want to get something to eat?" She asked the two of us. We both nodded seperately. Hope looked around to get her bearings and find the arcade from where we all were, "Okay, just wait here for a bit. I'll go grab the guys before we go."

Seeing that we were all going to separate, Megan perked up and almost jumped off of the bench, "Wait, Hope-!"

"No. No," Hope said sternly, holding up a hand and stopping Megan mid-sentence. Slowly, a very sly smile grew on her face, "Stay here, both of you. I'll be right back."

"No, don't you-," Megan was about to dispute, before Hope put her hands on her shoulders and leaned in close to tell her something. Whatever it was, it took the fight out of her, and replaced it with another, "…You're right. You're right. I should. I will."

This seemed to brighten Hope's day, "Good!" She said giving Megan a nudge, "It'll be fine. Be right back!"

And with that, she took off, leaving me alone with someone who didn't seem to want to be. I looked down at where Megan was sitting. She looked away. Whatever Hope had said to fire her up hadn't lasted long.

She was not comfortable being alone with me, and her being uncomfortable made me feel uncomfortable. I wasn't well-trained enough in my mannerisms to keep it from showing, which just made things worse.

It made me grumpy to think about that things weren't going well, and I had been so excited. She seemed like she had been too, though granted, it had been Hope who had done more of the talking when I'd gotten the invite, but that wasn't the point. Whatever this was, it was my fault too.

Just what was _my_ problem? I figured Megan's deal was that I was an asshole, which was not the best trait for a person to have if you were going to be left alone with them. I didn't have that excuse. Megan was a sweetheart.

'Fuck this,' I thought to myself. There wasn't anything about her that should have made me wary, and nothing was going to get more casual if one of us didn't at least try to take the first step.

I had to try and loosen her up somehow, and there was only one way I could think of to do it – run my mouth. It usually seemed to do the job, so why not here? Just as long as I didn't do anything weird like throw an arm around her.

I plopped down on the bench next to her, making nothing of it, even when her head seemed to dart my way for a moment. I gave her a look as though I were asking what the problem was, and quickly cut it out. No, Bellamy. Don't be a jerk, and don't scare the poor girl. Just talk to her. Get to know her a bit more. We got along well enough in most cases. Things were just... she seemed to like me, then she seemed to want to be anywhere else but near me.

"So, it seems like you guys are a few people short of a full squad," I said, trying to get some kind of talk started. Something easy, "Are they back at school, or did they have something better to do?"

Megan smiled a bit in return, "Mark went off on trip to go get some album," She said, "He's been chatting about it for weeks, but I don't know who it's by. I just remember I'd never heard of them before."

"Are they any good?" Megan just shrugged. Well, there went that avenue of conversation, "Right. Well, what about your other teammate? I don't think I've met her at all."

I _knew_ Megan had another teammate, Jessica Vale. I had seen her before. I just never came across her.

Megan let out a sigh, "Jessie never really seems that into what we're doing," She told me. Yes. Tell Bellamy your problems. Let me soothe your soul, "Because she can see stuff, whenever she sees something, she just doesn't try. If she sees us win, she says we won without her. If we lose, she says she saw us all lose anyway, so it's not worth it."

That seemed the exact opposite of how I was trying to get Ruth to look at her powers, "Isn't the point of precog the fact that you can change things after you know what's supposed to happen?" Woe be if I had actually let her fall into the trap of looking at her precognition so negatively. I convinced her that if something bad happened, "Maybe she sees all of the failing because she knows she's not going to try when she sees it."

Seeing the future automatically changed it, or at least that was the theory most people lent themselves to. It probably helped in desperate situations.

Megan's fretful expression turned a 180, "That's what I said!" She said with a little flutter of her wings. She seemed happy that someone agreed with her, "We tried, but Ben told us to just leave it alone at this point. Maybe she'll come around eventually? I don't know."

I wanted to help, but I didn't know how the Paragon worked as a unit. Any advice I could give might have messed up their dynamic, "If talking didn't work, that's probably the next best bet. Maybe your advisor can do something?"

"Maybe," She seemed to be considering it as an option, "Ben's been trying to figure this out. I don't think he wants someone else involved, even Miss Sinclair, and she's supposed to be teaching us."

I raised an eyebrow under my hat, "Are you sure you should have told me about it then?" I asked. Because I damn sure wasn't a Paragon.

Megan nodded, an adorably serious look on her face, "You won't go around telling people or using it against us in Field Day events. I think you're a good guy, Bel."

"I'm _a_ guy. I couldn't tell you for sure if I was good or bad," I took my hat off and brushed my hair down with my hand as I leaned back on the bench, "But if you say so, I guess I'll have to live up to it," I didn't get an answer at first and turned to look over at her.

Megan had leaned over my way, very close to my face. Dangerously close. Before I could ask what was up, she leaned back, having gotten what she'd apparently wanted, "Hey, your eyes are blue," She pointed out, "I thought they were green. They were last night, I think."

I chuckled, a bit out of relief. And here I'd been thinking that she wanted a kiss or something. That would have been awkward if I'd have acted on my assumption. See? Not good with people, "My eyes change color depending on how much light I'm charged up with. Blue means I'm as charged as I'm gonna get, I think," Safely, at least, "I've never gone past it. Then there's green, yellow, and red means I'm low."

She seemed to accept my explanation, but that didn't mean her curiosity was satisfied, "What happens if you run out?"

That certainly wasn't the kind of conversation we needed to have during a happy outing, "Don't worry about it. We shouldn't be talking about depressing things."

It took Megan a moment to put two-and-two together without being explicitly told, "Oh," She realized that she was about to get me to talk about something that would kill me, "Well, why don't you just try to stay at blue all of the time? That means you're full right? So nothing bad will happen if you keep that much power all of the time."

"Well, Dr. McCoy told me that's bad too," I said. If we were going to talk about it no matter what, I just had to get through it, "If I get too much, I'll get overcharged and burn out... and then, well, you know."

Megan was kicking herself, I could tell, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

While it wasn't my favorite thing in the world to talk about, it was just a part of my life. It didn't put me off that much. It was a part of me, the same as if I had asthma or anemia or something, "It's not a big deal. I just don't talk about it. It's not an issue, and it's not anybody else's problem, Megan," I assured her, putting a hand on her arm, "It's fine. All I have to do is use up as much of it as I can everyday. It's not as hard as it sounds," Especially since I almost never slept, "I'm just glad you think there's something interesting about me, even if it's just my powers. Most people look at me and only think about the cool parts of what I can do. Not the inconvenient stuff."

Megan shook her head, "No, It's not just your powers. I want to know about _you_ ," This time, she tried to work through whatever embarrassment she was feeling, "Ugh, that probably sounds so weird. Ohmigod! Why can't I do this right? Hope told me not to talk so much. I do that a lot, and she said some people think it's annoying. Well, a lot of people think it's annoying."

I wasn't going to let her stop now. Once or twice before, sure. But she had been holding herself back so long, and it was clear that she had, "Go on ahead. I'm listening. Trust me, you're doing better than I probably would be. I suck at talking to people. I always seem to make them mad or think _I'm_ weird."

If talking helped her feel comfortable, so be it. Besides, I didn't mind all of the talking. The more other people said, the less of a chance there was of me saying something dumb

Megan wasn't completely sure, but being reassured did something for her confidence. She drew her tongue across her lips in thought as she measured her words, "When I first met you, I just thought you were cool. You have a robot wolf who lives with you. You joined the Paladins and helped your team get to the final event in Field Day. You've fought a supervillain before! You've fought Mister Logan!" She actually lifted off from her seat in the bench with her wings.

As good as all of that was for my ego, I couldn't help but think that this was a rose-tinted sort of view. I also had a rap sheet of incidents. I had a list of failures. I'd let people down. I'd let myself down. I'd gotten people in danger for one reason or another. I believed in myself, sure. But my kind of self-confidence – the kind that you developed when you didn't expect anyone else to believe in you – was always rattled when someone else seemed to believe in you just as much or more than you did.

All I could do was sit, my ears wide open, just like my mouth, as she flew around and continued, "But it's more than that. The New Mutants like you. You even got the Hellions to like you, mostly. You come off all grumpy and stuff, but when I actually talked to you, you didn't blow me off. You actually talked to me. You seemed happy to. You seem happy to talk to anybody. You just don't try to hang out with anyone."

I recovered long enough to respond with some kind of retort, "I'm used to keeping to myself. I think deeply and bask in the glow of my own inner reflection," That line of b.s. didn't hold up for even five seconds, "That was a complete load, by the way. I get anxious meeting new people, so I just don't do it."

There. I said it. I admitted it. I was no social butterfly. More of a social spider, just sitting in my web waiting for potential acquaintances to trap themselves in my web of interaction so I could drain the friendship from them. And that was an awful and startlingly graphic metaphor. I might have problems.

Megan laughed, but it was a warm, comfortable one. It seemed that if I could get her talking, she was in her element, "You're... nicer than you act, even if you don't seem like it at first. But it's not just that either. You're never afraid of anything, no matter how scary it seems," Her smile fell a bit and she let out a sigh as she landed in front of me, "It's encouraging. I wish I could be like that. I can't even fly during practices without a helmet. Even though I've been training all year, I'm so scared of crashing."

It was nice to hear that she thought that way about me. But she had made one grave miscalculation in her outlook of Bellamy Marcher. One I could not allow to go unchecked, "Megan, I'm scared of everything," I said bluntly, "Everything I've done since I've gotten here has scared me shitless. Everything."

It was like she didn't want to believe it, even though it was coming straight out of my mouth, "What? But all of that stuff, you actually did it. You went through with it. You pulled it off. All of it!"

I did. Those things happened, and I didn't die. That was a plus. Even so-, "And every day, it's never good enough. I'm not, I mean. My team made me the leader, I didn't think I was good enough. I still don't. When I had to get away from the Reavers, the whole time, I was scared I was gonna die, and Ruth was gonna die, and it would've been my fault. And don't even get me started on the Danger Room."

She seemed to visibly deflate. Her wings even drooped, "I don't understand."

I didn't mean to burst her bubble. I just wanted to be honest, so I kept going, "I fuck up a lot. I get slapped around a lot. And when the bottom falls out in any given situation we end up in, I'm just as lost as all of you are. I swear, I'm no magic man with the mystical key. I just don't want to fail."

"But in the Danger Room, you got us all out. You did that. It wasn't a fuc-... err, screw up," She replied with some fire, censoring herself from dropping a swear.

Maybe she was right, but not being able to keep it from happening in the first place was a screw up. Nothing would change my mind on that, "I bought us time," I said coolly.

Megan wouldn't hear anything of my attempts to downplay what happened, "That was still more than what a lot of other people did! If you think you're a screw up or you're not good enough, why'd you even try to take the lead?"

I shook my head at a loss for how to explain it all eloquently. I gave that up, "Someone had to," I eventually said, "It's the same with everything else. I do things like that because if I look around and I see no one's coming up with the answers, I think to myself, 'Why not me? Why can't I do it myself?'" I told her, eventually figuring out how to put what I wanted to say, "...Hey, you know what my favorite part of hand-to-hand training is?"

"No?" She seemed confused about what I was getting at.

"Grappling. Because it's about control," I said, feeling more comfortable with where I was trying to get to with the conversation, "If you're not stronger than the other guy, use technique and get leverage. If the other guy has better technique than you, create a situation where leverage is useless. That's how I dumb it down, at least," Yeah, I felt better. More like I was making my point, "What I'm trying to say is, I like when I have control over my own fate. I like it when there's a plan, even if the plan has no chance. Just the idea that there's a way out if you look hard enough, try hard enough, think hard enough. I mean, we're the fucking X-Men, or we're gonna be. Just look at what the other ones have pulled off. We can do anything."

Megan suddenly snapped her fingers and pointed into my face,"That! That right there! What you just said, or what you meant," She said brightly, "Screw ups don't think like that. They don't handle things like that. I think you were made the leader for a reason. And I think it was a good choice."

How could you argue with someone who believed in you. If you spent all of your time doing your best, it was actually nice to have people recognize it and compliment you in their own way, "Thank you," I was finally able to say, "It's nice to know that someone else might think I'm awesome. Driving my own bandwagon is kind of lonely."

"How about a ticket off then?"

A massive shadow settled over the two of us in the sunset. We turned around to find a guy that stood well over a foot taller than me right there. His skin was greyish-green and haggard. He wore some kind of sleek armor that covered his body, arms, and leg, and a red hood that also served as a cape. Across his face, covering his nose, stretched a piece of metal.

"Who are you?"

"You can call me a messenger," He said. Awfully big messenger then. Scary-looking too, "But that can wait. I'm not here for you, child. Where are the X-Men?" He smiled, promising nothing good, likely no matter what my answer was, and I had no clue to begin with. They weren't at the school, and he probably knew that.

"Uh… the school is at the edge of town," Megan said warily, pointing in the proper direction, "The X-Men aren't there though. I think they're on a mission."

I looked her way and slowly shook my head. Oh, honey. No. Don't give the big scary guy intel.

He seemed exasperated by this information, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation, "And you have no idea where they went?"

"They really don't tell us anything," I said before realizing I probably should have been trying to persuade him to leave us alone, "…But they should be back soon. Tonight even," So go away before they come back.

The odd -looking man let out a sigh of patient acceptance, "I see. This is very frustrating. But thank you. You have both been very helpful, mutant children," I saw his body tense. Here we go, "Now about that message…"

I was left with an opening though. He made eye contact with me, "Sure. Go ahead and leave it after the flash."

"GRAAAAAH!" The man roared when the force of a flash grenade went off right in his retinas. He put his hands up, as though touching and rubbing at his eyes would do anything to help him. It did help, me that is. Because I saw something sharp attached to his gauntlets on the back of his right hand. No one with gauntlets on had any good intentions planned. So I shot the most dangerous target available. It just so happened to also work out that it was right in front of his face.

I preemptively knocked him down with an explosive blast, but he moved to get up the moment he hit the ground. I basically shot him in the head, and he didn't stay down. That did not bode well for my chances.

"Megan, we should probably run. Now!" He confronted us in the middle of Salem Center. Clearly he had no issues with starting something in broad daylight, so being in public wasn't going to help us.

"Y-Yeah!" She didn't need to be told twice to run away. That was good. Some people were too proud to try and get away. I should know, I worked with one of them – Hisako, "But wait, weren't you winning?"

Before I could answer, or she could take off, we were interrupted, courtesy of a body check to the back that wouldn't have been out of place in the NHL. Both Megan and I fell to the ground, "He was opportunistic," I turned to my back and went to fire a shot, only for him to step on my arm away before I could take aim, "I can respect that, but it won't happen again."

I let out a yell and tried to move him off, but he just ground his heel into my forearm. Megan lunged at him to try to get him off of me, but he swatted her away. It pissed me off, but more importantly it gave me an opening. When he returned his attention to me and lifted his other leg to stomp my head, I pressed my fist to the bottom of his boot and fired. He flew off of me like a rocket. I got up and took off after him.

I jumped into the air the instant he hit the ground, intending to pounce on his head like a tiger and pulverize his head with light. He rolled out of the way and back onto his feet, but when I landed, I used the intended blast to fly his way before he could reset. He sidestepped me and just let me fly past him.

Damn. Of course he knew what he was doing. That was just great.

I felt hands wrap around my ankles and feared the worst. I knew I was about to get ragdolled. Only, I didn't. I was lifted off of the ground with an upside-down view of our enemy as he charged after me. He seemed surprised to see my face. Even more surprised to get shot in _his_ face.

Megan had gotten a hold of me, and had given me just enough of a pull to where I could flip to my feet safely. Atta girl. I couldn't have asked for a better assist in the moment even if Eddie had been there. Didn't even lose my hat, "Nice."

That feeling didn't last long. Our enemy didn't go down. He took my closed fist blast like a punch to the face, "The X-Men didn't disappoint when I met them, and it seems their young don't either," He unhooked a weird circular weapon with barbed blades from his armor, "But I am Ord of the Breakworld. I have been fighting for decades longer than you have been alive. You are a warmup for me."

I clenched my teeth and fired a shot with both hands. He _deflected_ them with the armor on his wrists and ran at me. My eyes stayed locked on his weapon as he began to swing it at me. I couldn't back him off of me. He was strong. So strong, even when I started channeling juice to my body to make myself faster and stronger, he still had the advantage. Even when I tried to push him off of me when he got too close, all I got for my trouble was an elbow to the face.

He never let me get too far, even when it would have been easy to.

Ord was smart. He didn't know what Megan could do, other than fly, but instead of coming in to help fight, she was staying away from us even though she could see I was getting my ass handed to me. That made things easier for him. Either she was standing by for whatever reason until I was defeated and then he could move on to her, or she had some kind of power that she couldn't use while I was close to him.

My arm got cut. I grabbed my wound and headbutted him as a reflex. That was a mistake. He had a head like a cinder block, both in size and how hard it was. None of this was working. Ord grabbed me by the collar and headbutted me right back.

I was mad. How long was this going to be a thing? As much as I kept getting better, I still wasn't good enough. It was never enough. No amount of team training. No amount of late nights getting my ass handed to me by Mister Logan. And here I was, getting smacked around by this seven-foot freak who looked like a space Assassin's Creed reject.

He swung his blade thing at me, and in a fit of rage I swung at him. It was here this day that I discovered something else when I channeled a blast in a particular way.

Closed fist = concussive. Open palm = explosive. Single finger = piercing.

Knife hand = slicing. Awesome.

I swung a vertical chop at him, and a wave of light the length of my forearm to my fingertips flew out. Had I been aiming down the middle instead of just at his weapon to stop it from killing me, I'd have killed him instead. Granted, I would have died too, but it would have been mutually assured destruction. As it stood though, I stopped him from hurting me and took a chunk out of his shoulder at the same time. A literal chunk.

I had hurt him, significantly. Finally. And with that, it was time to go. I wasn't any kind of full-fledged superhero. I was a trainee. We didn't fight bad guys for real. We weren't supposed to anyway, for good reason. With that in mind, I turned and did my best impression of a track star and ran for it. My left arm was slick with my own blood.

Megan flew up beside me, and took my hands so she could try taking off with me again. She could fly faster without me, but the idea was that Ord couldn't fly, so he couldn't reach us before we got somewhere safe.

"Bellamy, are you alright?" Megan asked when she noticed the blood running down my chest, side, and back from the cut on my shoulder.

It was pretty deep, but I couldn't even feel it. Adrenaline was a hell of a thing, "It could have been way worse. I'll be fine. We've just got to get the hell out of here."

She wasn't strong enough to hold me up and fly fast enough to get away from this guy at the same time. He was big, fast, strong, and he could fly. That was totally unfair, and yet… we had to deal with him. More specifically, I had to fight him, or at least try to.

I swung my legs forward and let go of Megan's hands, throwing myself right at the guy in front of us. He went to swat me out of the air, so I shot at him. He put his hands up to fend off the concussive blast I sent his way, basically wading his way through it.

I couldn't budge him back as he tore through my blast, and eventually I got within his reach. Thus was the curse of forward momentum.

All I can say is, I thought I had gotten used to being hit. All I remembered was seeing him swing at me, feeling a lot of pain, then waking up when I hit the top of a tree and fell through the branches to the ground. I saw red, I was completely breathless, and the side of my face throbbed every time my heart beat.

That was with my powers making my body tougher. Maybe _I_ should have invested in a helmet instead of Megan? And perhaps some body armor as well. While I was on the ground, laying on my side, I touched down at my belly where I felt a lot of pain and felt something squishy and wet. There was a lot of blood around me as well.

"Ssssshit..." I muttered, basically trying to hold my guts in with my bare hands. He cut me. Of course he cut me. Why wouldn't he? Because I came at him like a screaming howler monkey in some banzai attack? Well, this was what I got for it. I wasn't going to scare someone like him into not reacting, so he did. Boy did he ever, "Oh... that's not good. That's really not good."

I rolled over to my back. With my view of the sky I could see Megan landing, but I could also hear heavy steps on the ground. I turned my head and saw Ord standing a few feet away.

"Ohmigod, Bel! Oh, no-no-no, there's so much blood!" Megan was fretting over me, words coming out of her mouth a mile a minute, but I couldn't hear any of it, "You're gonna be okay! I'll get you somewhere, just... don't die! Please!" I just knew that while she was freaking out, that guy was going to kill her too.

"Pixie, I'm already dead!" I snapped, breaking her from trying to comfort me, "Run already! Get away from him!" I wanted to shoot him, to give her a chance to flee on her own without me weighing her down. But I couldn't even see well enough to rattle off a shot that could even convince him to stay back. Yelling hadn't helped.

Ord grinned at me. I hated it. I wanted to carve his face off with a laser. Unfortunately, I was more concerned with other things than a tit-for-tat get-back. Thankfully, he seemed to be done. He put away his circular blade. My blood and pieces of my flesh were still on it.

"Send the X-Men my message, girl. I don't think this one will be able to any longer," He just had to taunt the dying boy. Asshole, "The mutant abomination will _never_ be a threat to the Breakworld," And with that, he left. Not a moment too soon.

Everything started to go dark. I normally stayed pretty warm, but things started feeling cold. The glow of the sunset felt so good. It just made me want to go to sleep, and I never felt like that. It had just been such a long day, and I was so tired.

"Bel, no! You're scaring me! I'm not being funny, please don't go to sleep!" Megan yelled, but even though she kept talking, her voice grew quieter and quieter to me, "Come on! We're getting you help! Gotta get you back to the Institute! God, you're heavy!"

As I went out, the last thing that went through my mind and came out of my mouth was one thing.

"...Never good enough."

* * *

 **And that's the chapter, guys.**

 **I've not got a lot to say this time, so I'll just say I hope you enjoyed and bid you adieu for now.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	14. The More You Know

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Hopefully, when I finish writing my goddamn book, I can sell the rights for a bundle. Then I don't have to write these disclaimers anymore.

Hey, a man can dream.

 **Chapter 14: The More You Know**

* * *

All of that 'walk into the light' stuff when you have a near-death experience is untrue. It was for me at least. It was more like I just went to sleep, then woke up.

I hadn't been in the infirmary for a while, so when I woke up, I was less than pleased to see the room that I'd first woken up in when I'd originally arrived at Xavier's. There was a trend beginning here. One that I didn't particularly like.

"Fuck," Was the first waking word out of my mouth, "I'm thirsty."

"Ohhhhh, look who's not dead."

I turned my head to the side and saw Eddie sitting in a chair, messing around on a portable device. As my vision focused, I noticed that it was my PS Vita.

"Why do you have that? You'd have had to go into my room to get it," I asked, feeling selfish for a moment. The feeling quickly passed. If he was able to get it away from Saberwolf and keep all of his limbs, he could play it for a while.

Eddie looked up from the game I assumed he was playing to give me a smug look, "Well, you were out for a whole day. I just figured if you died, you'd want me to have something special to remember you by."

It was a joke. One he needed to tell and get my reaction from to establish if I was really okay.

"You're a real bro, Wing," I said sarcastically as I slowly started to sit up. I didn't feel any pain, or even a scar from my injury, "Remind me to thank Elixir later, or at least tell the New Mutants to."

"I thought you were out the whole time. How'd you know Josh patched you up?"

Under the covers, I pulled my hospital gown up to check myself out more closely, "I got my guts cut out, and none of the X-Men were home at the time," I said dryly, "I'm figuring someone dropped me in front of him before I flatlined for too long."

"Yup," Eddie set the Vita aside and sighed, taking a moment before addressing the obvious elephant in the room, "You seriously almost bit it this time, man. But Dr. McCoy said you would be okay after some sleep. Something about your powers and how you use your stored energy to regenerate or something. I was only able to make out so much about what he was saying."

He seemed really affected by my nearly dying. I just wanted to get out of the infirmary, "Cool. Let's get the hell out of here," I couldn't be bothered to care.

I'm kind of an asshole when it comes to how other people react to things. If I'm not emotionally affected, I can't empathize. I'll ignore it if I can get away with it. It's not a very… heroic trait to be that detached from the immediate world around me, I admit.

Eddie couldn't believe how I responded, "Dude, you almost died. Don't you care?"

What did he want from me? To wake up panting, patting at myself to make sure I was still in one piece? "No, because I'm not dead, and as far as I can tell, I'm fine now. What do you want from me?" He looked at me like I was some kind of alien creature. No, I'm pretty sure I fought the alien.

"Do you have a death wish or something?" Eddie asked.

That was offensive. I loved life. After all, it was just getting interesting for me, "No. I like living, and I get scared when stuff tries to kill me. Same as anyone else, really."

Kind of. Most people didn't have things actively trying to end their lives. That aside, I still had a pretty solid point, in my opinion. Eddie did not agree, "No, not really. Because when things like this happen, and it's over, you don't seem to dwell too much on it."

"Survive and advance," I said in what I thought was a smooth manner, "It happened, it was bad. Now it's over, I'm still alive, and I can look back and figure out how to keep from messing up that way, so it'll never happen again."

Eddie scoffed and turned his chair away grumpily, "Whatever. Be that way then," He said before a devious grin formed on his face, "Whatever I have to say couldn't possibly be any worse than what everybody else is gonna say when they get in here."

Oh no. Eddie being miffed at me was one thing. He was a guy, and that meant I could deal with him easily enough. The girls were another matter. Hisako was tough to handle when I _hadn't_ done anything to set her off. Ruth got very touchy when I was careless about my own well-being.

…And I didn't even want to think about the kind of hell I was going to catch from Miss Pryde. Yeesh. No thank you on that front.

I looked around the room for a closet or some kind of place for my belongings to go, "Where are my clothes? I've got to get out of here now."

Eddie shook his head, reveling a bit too much in my displeasure, "Heh, no," He said, the jerk, "Not a chance. There's no way I'm letting you try to budge until the girls get here. Miss Pryde's got some choice words for you. Pretty sure Armor does too."

A chill went down my spine. Hell is other people, "Dude, come on. I will deal with this later. Not five minutes after waking up. Please," I tried to negotiate.

"No can do," He pointed at his own eyes and gestured his head to me, "You're in the red now too, so you can't even kick my ass and get away," He crowed victoriously.

I tried to channel some light energy to my hand and felt almost empty. Nothing some time out in the sun couldn't fix in a day or so, but far too low to go around playing with. He was right. Well, partially right at least.

"I don't need my powers to kick your ass," I declared, fully prepared to prove this point and slug my way out of the infirmary, "Want to see?"

He seemed a bit apprehensive at first, until he stopped and took a good loom at me, "No, because I don't need to see you running bare-assed through the Institute."

I was black, yes, but still light-skinned enough to where I _could_ actually blush, "Eddie, where are my goddamn clothes!?"

"Don't tell him anything, Wing!" Hisako said as she walked into the room with a frowning Ruth, "That moron is staying right there until Dr. McCoy clears him."

Betrayal! Eddie shrugged carelessly when I went to bring this up to him, "Hey, I texted everybody back when you started moving around. Then you woke up."

Fair enough. All I could do now was deal with it. I put the biggest, stupidest grin on my face that I could and threw my hands up into the air, "Girls! Show me some love!"

Hisako stared at me like I was some strange tentacle monster, and yes that was a Japan joke, "What are you doing? Put your arms down," She said.

I was being an idiot on purpose to try and disarm whatever spiel she'd been set to go on, "I want a hug. Aren't you happy that I'm alright?"

Damn Hisako. Still so cold to me, "Too damn bad. You can't get one," Fortunately, Ruth disregarded her altogether and leaned herself over my bed and me to wrap her arms around me, "Blindfold, get off of him! He's supposed to be in trouble!"

I hammed it up with a big sigh, rocking side-to-side, rubbing Ruth's back, "This is why you're my favorite," I stage whispered, letting her give me a good extra squeeze before she let go.

"She is happy that you survived," Ruth told me once she pulled away, and she honestly seemed overjoyed to say so, "Yes. She saw Ord before, but no, not for this. Something worse, yes."

Still sat off to the side, Eddie voiced his disbelief, "What? No way. Worse than Sol getting his guts cut out like a slaughterhouse pig?"

Ruth pulled away from me and gave Eddie the gravest look she could give with half of her facial features concealed, "Yes," Eddie pressed himself a bit farther into his chair, "Pardon, this was better. So much better. She is happy Bellamy is here with us. You should be too, Wing."

Wow. Ominous.

Whatever weirdness was brewing, I screwed it all up by throwing an arm around Ruth and pulling her to sit with me, "Well _I'm_ happy I'm here. It's much better than being dead."

Ruth let out a sigh, as though we didn't understand what she was telling us, "No, she meant-… No, it doesn't matter. That future has changed, thank you."

Hisako walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder, "Right. I'm not even mad anymore. It's just good to see you awake."

Aw. That was nice. I just smiled at her and nodded. I loved my team. Speaking of my team, two of them were missing. Namely our advisor and our newest member.

Since no one was going anywhere, we all got comfortable in my infirmary room, "Okay, I love you guys, but we're short a few Paladins here," I pointed out, "Where are Laura and Miss Pryde?"

"Well Laura was here. Not that long ago actually," Eddie told us, "She stood at the foot of your bed for a while, just looking at you. She was the one who buzzed me about you moving around, getting ready to wake up."

I didn't know whether to be happy that our socially challenged teammate had come to see me, or that she'd identified that I was waking up, then left, "And she just left without saying hi?" Eddie nodded, having been the only one present at the time, "Fine, okay. What about Miss Pryde then?"

This time Hisako answered me, "Oh. Her boyfriend came back," She said, as though such a thing wasn't surprising. It clearly showed on my face, "…We didn't know she had one either. She never told us about him."

None of this was helpful to me, or my all-important ego, "Okay, I'm confused. What makes that more important than this? And yes, I'm aware that makes me sound like an asshole. I don't care," Just to make things clear, in case my friends forgot who they were dealing with.

A soft knock came at my open door, alerting us all that Dr. McCoy had come to see me, "Because until last night, our dear friend Peter was believed to be dead," He said, having overheard us before greeting us, "Hello, children."

All of us looked at each other before Hisako said the first thing that came to mind, "…So is this one of those things that we can't know about?" It just so happened that her first thought was the one that I assumed Eddie was also thinking. I assumed as much because it was what I had been thinking.

Dr. McCoy shook his head and chuckled as he walked over to me, looking down at his clipboard, "Seeing as how the individual responsible for bringing him back from the dead attempted to kill your squad leader, I would say you should," He said before looking up at me with a gentle smile. Dr. McCoy was a cool guy, "Now, where to begin?"

I was eager to learn. Learn about the guy that turned me inside out, "You can start with telling me who that big mothertrucker who ran me over was, if you don't mind."

Dr. McCoy was always happy to explain things to someone who would listen. Now he had four someones, "Certainly. His name is Ord, a 'diplomat' of the Breakworld. He's not exactly the most pleasant fellow, is he? Arm, please," He asked, holding up a syringe.

I knew most that stuff already though. He had identified himself while he had been in the middle of trying to end my life. Also, he had been a dick while trying to end my life, "Okay, what kind of beef does he have with you? He wanted me to send the X-Men a message. Then he cut my guts out."

That statement, along with the added sight of Dr. McCoy drawing some of my blood made Hisako a tad queasy, "Do you have to put it that way?" She said. I hadn't asked, but at least one of my team members had to have seen what I'd looked like before Elixir put me back together, "Ugh, I don't want to think about that."

Maybe gore just didn't bother me so much when it was mine, "It's exactly what happened. There isn't exactly a way to sugarcoat getting eviscerated," I said, rubbing my arm where the needle had gone in, "What else can you tell us, Doctor?"

"A government agency worked with Ord to switch the body of a friend of ours who died saving the world. This was done as a bargain between the agency and Ord to keep Breakworld from declaring war on Earth. In exchange for peace, Ord would have the chance to use his body to come up with a way to cure mutants. If you've been watching the news, they've done it. Namely, Dr. Rao did."

Hisako started putting things together, "This guy is a diplomat, so he has immunity like the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 2, right? So if Bel was actually good enough to kill that guy-."

I took that moment to interject, "I wouldn't have killed him. I mean, I wouldn't have then. I might now," And I felt right in feeling that way.

Hisako lightly paintbrushed me over the head a few times to get me to be quiet. She didn't even look my way. It wound up starting a ten second slapfight, "-If Bel was good enough to kill that guy, he would have started an intergalactic war," Dr. McCoy gave a weird wiggle of his hand, as if to say that she was mostly on-base, "That is nuts. How do you get into these things?"

That was not the biggest thing Eddie took away from what we'd heard, "Fuck that! That guy is the reason that scientist lady came up with 'Hope'?" He asked, bewildered that things about the mutant cure could get even worse, "What if he attacks the mansion and uses that stuff on us?"

I held up my hand, still getting a very weak glow from the lack of juice flowing through my body. Still, there was enough to make a point, "Then I'll shoot him in the face. Did I not say this to you the other day?"

My braggadocio would have been a lot more effective on Eddie, had I not been running my mouth from a hospital bed, "Oh, yeah. Because that worked so well for you the first time. Right now, you're weaker than I've ever seen you. You're not fighting anybody like that."

His snark was not appreciated. Nor was his reminder of my near-fatal defeat.

Dr. McCoy stood between us before we could go head-to-head, "It won't take long for you to rebuild your energy," He said to me, "I need to look into your physiology more, but it seems that when you suffer serious, life-threatening injuries your body shuts down and uses whatever you have stored up to heal you."

I sat there and grumbled, "Well that sucks. So I have to sleep to get super-fast healing?" And I could only sleep for certain after getting the piss beaten out of me. Thanks, powers, "Forget that for now. What is this all about?"

Sugarcoating our potential demise was not something Dr. McCoy was in the business of. He'd been through it enough that it was kind of passe for him, "A mutant will destroy Breakworld. It's been predetermined, allegedly. Only, no one knows who it will be, so Ord, ambitious individual as he is, decided he would wipe out all of mutantkind just to be safe."

Oh. Well alright then. All of us just looked at each other, without saying a word. No one really knew how to respond to that, and the good doctor recognized that.

"Yes, everyone reacts that way the first time they're involved in something like this," Dr. McCoy nonchalantly said. He set his clipboard aside and started unhook me from some of the machines I was on, "Regardless, you should be fine to return to the student dormitories. I'll run bloodwork for you to make sure there are no anomalies, but other than that, I'm releasing you from my care. Go forth, brave young Solaris!" He concluded with theateresque pomp.

"Cool!" I almost went to jump out of the bed until I remembered my hospital gown problem, "Okay, someone get me some pants!"

Just as long as I could put all of that crap behind me. Almost dying once was the limit for me in any given situation. I had done my due superhero-trainee diligence.

XxX

It took a few hours, but I finally got enough energy back to start safely throwing around again. Not that I did, mind you. It was just nice to have the knowledge in the back of my mind that if a brawl duked off, I could let loose with some delicious light.

Everything that happened, I just chalked it up as another thing that I wouldn't be telling my parents about once the summer rolled around. I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining any of it to keep them from getting heart attacks. For once, I decided to do something active outdoors to try and gather as much sunlight as I could, the purest light source available. Fortunately, I was able to find some people willing to let me join in on some of their festivities.

"So you're really better now?" Gold-skinned Josh Foley asked me as he smashed the baseball in his hand into his glove, "Man, when Pixie dropped you in front of me, I thought you were a goner for sure."

I stood a ways away warming up my arms to swing the bat in my hands. David stood behind me, ready to catch, "I should have been. You basically had to shove my guts back into me. I owe you one. Just say the word," I said, digging my heels into the grass, ready to hit.

Josh got the message and set himself up to pitch, "Nah, we owed you one in my book. If you want to call it even though, I'm cool with that."

"Good. That means I don't have to feel bad about this," I said just as he let loose with his throw. With a shift of my hips and a swing of my arms, the little white ball never had a chance of getting by me. The crack of wooden bat split the air, "Love that sound," As the ball soared through the air, the New Mutants' resident flyer Jay Guthrie caught it before I could bask in the glory of my hit, "Hey! Come on, Jay! Let my homerun breathe a bit!"

I was excited, which was weird because I hated baseball with a passion. But I _loved_ winning... mostly as a side-effect of being competitive and hating losing.

"Nah! That ball wouldn't have even seen the track, bud!" Jay yelled back from the air, throwing the ball back down to Josh, "Light 'im up, Elixir!"

Josh didn't need the motivation, but he accepted it regardless, "Yeah, I've got something special for you this time, Bellamy," He stopped and turned to the side where three of his other teammates were sitting, making sure he got the attention of the blonde one, Wallflower, "Hey, Laurie! Watch this! Three strikes, coming right up! First one down the middle!"

She cheered back, because they were into each other, "You can do it, Josh!"

Good for them. It wasn't going to help him strike me out. My hand-eye coordination was that of a gamer, mixed with an athlete and a trained fighter. And that was before factoring in the superpowers, "Hey, don't bring other people into this. I didn't even bring my crew," I said.

From the sidelines, Noriko chimed in, "Isn't part of that because Hisako hates you?" She would know, seeing as how they actually hung out sometimes, "I don't think she'd cheer for you even if she was here."

I waved my hand to play it off, "It's not hate. She just doesn't always have the highest opinion of the way I carry myself. Which sucks, because I could really use some goddamn team spirit here!" I griped aloud.

Everyone was against me, even David, who usually went under the radar, "What's the matter, Bel? Can't take the pressure?" He said, still standing in place as the catcher.

"Not you too," I said to him, getting back into position to hit once again, "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but my best work comes when the lights are on me and shining bright. Now throw the ball, Midas," I finished with a taunt to Josh, trying to get a mental edge before I hit his pitch off of damn campus.

With Josh good and riled, we were all set to go. Just as he made the motion for the pitch, David stood up behind me and pointed elsewhere, "Pixie."

A sufficient distraction, at the worst possible time, "What?" I stood straight up and looked over only to take a hard-ass baseball to the arm, "Ah! Fuck!"

There was a quite unhealthy 'thwack' sound as it bounced off of me. Everybody winced at the same time while I hopped around holding where I was hit. It was the most reserved reaction I could muster. I wanted to drop to the ground, but that wasn't cool.

David, being the closest, walked over to try and see if I was alright while I kept pacing around like a wounded animal, "Ooh. You alright?"

I grit my teeth and tried to suck it up. I'd been beaten to a pulp and cut open before. Why did a baseball thrown by a teenager hurt so much? "It was in the bicep," Better than in the elbow. If I'd gotten a broken bone just after getting over what had already happened to me, I'd have been upset, "Come on, Elixir. You just fixed me, and I just got out of the infirmary."

Josh dismissed himself from blame, and granted, it wasn't really his fault, "Don't blame me. You stood up on the plate. I told you it was coming right down the middle. My fastball's as gold as I am," He paused and felt the need to specify something else, "That doesn't count as a walk, by the way. You left the box."

"Shut up," I said, with no real heat. Even if I had been mad, there were more important matters to attend to at the moment, "Hey, I've got to go handle something. I'll see you guys around."

That 'something' was the pink-haired girl that had wandered over to talk to Noriko, Laurie, and Sofia. We had made eye contact for a split-second before I'd been belted with Josh's pitch, then she'd tried to slip away.

Not today she wasn't. She figured as much too, looking back when I called out to her, "Megan! Hey!" I finally got her to stop neat the boathouse by the lake, "Why'd you leave? You could have said hi."

She turned around to face me, and the first thing I noticed was that she didn't seem happy that I was alright, "I didn't come to see you. You were just there, actually walking around in one piece."

Her tone was frosty. She couldn't have been upset that I was out doing things instead of wasting away in the infirmary to heal, "You're not gonna asked me why I'm out of bed or something, are you?" I asked.

"I already knew. People have been talking about it all morning," She said, not getting any more cordial with me as our talk progressed, "People kinda pay attention when you almost _die_."

Ah, there we go. Now we were at the heart of the matter, "You're angry about the whole Ord thing."

She turned to look at me. From how she did it, angry didn't even begin to describe the range of emotions she had felt, "You said you were going to die," She said, bringing me back to what I said to her when Ord was bearing down on us, "You told me not to do anything. I wanted to save your life. You were bleeding to death in my arms."

Maybe, but I didn't want her to get hurt the way I did, "I thought he would hurt you the way he hurt me. Maybe worse," I said, but it did nothing to pacify her. I didn't back down, "…I'm not apologizing, Megan."

She turned red, and not out of embarrassment. It was my last warning that she was about to blow her top, "I'm training to be part of the X-Men too! If you could fight back while that big jerk tried to take your head off, why can't I?" She asked heatedly, "I don't need you to protect me! I don't want to see anymore of my friends die while I'm standing right there and can do something about it! I thought you understood that!"

Oh. Hisako was right. I am a moron.

We all lived through the Danger Room kerfuffle. Things from that little event didn't stick with only me. We all got a piece of it. It screwed all of us up in a way. It wasn't even that long ago. And here I went running off, pushing Megan out of the way and making her see the same thing all over again. This time was worse! She actually had to watch me almost get killed instead of just coming across my body later.

All of it just proved what I thought before the date what I already knew. Megan was too good of a girl for me, "I do understand. I'm not sorry for what I did. But I get why you're pissed. If what I do doesn't actively screw over anyone, I don't think about how it could hurt them," I told her. I thought she was great, but I wasn't empathetic enough to be with someone like her and make her feel good, "I don't think you should hang out with me. I'm kind of an asshole."

Megan didn't seem very impressed with my self-aware admission, "Duh. I knew that already," Though as a plus, her expression softened, "I said you're a good person. Not that you're a nice person," She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, "I… still want to get to know you."

I felt a few butterflies in my stomach. She saved my life, and still liked me enough to want to maybe go out again. As far as getting ripped open went, this was the best possible outcome from it I could ask for.

Megan leaned against the wall of the boathouse and held her arms, "God, Bel, there was so much blood. It just wouldn't stop. I don't know how I made it back to school with you. That was the scariest thing I've ever seen," She told me with a shiver, "Even when Josh put you back together... you still looked so bad. I thought we were too late."

I winced at how I'd probably made her feel. I really needed to work on being less of a son of a bitch, "But you weren't. You got me help. I'm okay now. Thank you."

Megan nodded, as though she barely heard me. More important than my gratitude was her getting to the bottom of my attitude toward myself, "Do you, like, hate yourself?" She asked bluntly.

"What? No! I'm awesome," I exclaimed, before remembering what Hisako had said about my ego being too much sometimes, "I mean-... yeah, no. I'm awesome. I'm not sugarcoating that. I'm the best."

There was the ego. I had missed it. Not talking myself up was like holding back a sneeze. I could do it, but it hurt to. I couldn't even try to hide it anymore. I didn't want to. I was who I was. She said she wanted to get to know me. If we got any closer, I didn't want to trick her into thinking she was dating someone that she wasn't. Bellamy Marcher was a full experience, not something that could be taken halfway.

...That was not a sex joke. I was being dead serious.

I eased in next to her against the wall, "Look, Megan. I feel like I can do anything, even when I can't, I guess. And I don't know I can't do something until I try it and fail."

Even though I knew I was in over my head from the very beginning of the confrontation with Ord, the thought that I would lose or that either of us would get hurt as long as I was taking action never crossed my mind. In my mind, there was always a way to win. There was always a way to come out in one piece.

Settling was for losers. Go for broke. You couldn't reach the stars if you kept your feet on the ground. And if you shot for the stars, but missed, there was still a chance you'd wind up high in the sky somewhere.

"I didn't just come here to learn to control my powers, and I didn't come here thinking this place was safe. I came here because the idea of being a superhero excited me," I told her, "It's been hard, and dangerous, and scary, but I knew it would be when I signed up."

"I just thought we would all be older before this all started being our problem," Megan said, eyes cast to the ground, "I dunno. I thought we'd just ease into fighting villains and stuff."

I wished we could have eased into it. At this point after everything that had happened, I no longer had any illusions of that happening, "I felt the same way, right up until the Danger Room turned a trick on us. The X-Men can't protect all of us all the time, I guess."

Megan drew her eyebrows together and leaned herself more against me than the wall, putting her head on my shoulder. She smelled really good; sweet even. If were low enough on energy to fall asleep again, I probably would have. She definitely did.

I didn't bother waking her up. She was fine just where she was.

XxX

We were not alone.

When I arrived for our next team training session, there was someone else who wasn't our instructor there waiting with us.

He wore a dominantly red-colored version of the X-Men uniform, only without the legs. To be fair, the guy pulled it off, as he looked like a brick-shithouse if I ever saw one. His arms were the size of my head. He had short square-cut black hair and had one of the strongest-looking jawlines I had ever seen.

"Hi," I greeted uncertainly as I approached everyone on the field, "You must be an X-Man I've never met before. Well, I'm Bellamy. You can call me Solaris, I guess."

Nothing wrong with at least trying to be pleasant. He wasn't trying to kill us yet, which put him a notch about a good number of people that I tended to meet these days.

He didn't smile, even though it seemed like he had been trying to, "I am Peter," He said, extending his hand for me to shake. I did, and unsurprisingly he was friggin strong, "And you are the leader of Katya's squad. She told me she had students under her care."

I mouthed the name 'Katya'. My mind had quickly perceived this as a way to refer to Miss Pryde, but it took a moment to wrap my head around. Also, I had no idea who this gigantic guy was. Hisako leaned in and quickly informed me – Miss Pryde's apparent boyfriend, Piotr Rasputin, Colossus, back from the dead, "Oh! Ooh, tough luck, Wing."

"Shut up, Sol," Eddie shot back. Whether it was because I alluded to his crush on Miss Pryde out loud, or because I was rubbing in the fact that whatever nonexistent window he had to win her over was now shut, I didn't know, "We can't all have a chick fall into our laps like some people."

Now that wasn't fair. It wasn't like I did nothing. My sheer animal magnetism apparently appealed to some people, "Don't be that way, bud. Statistically, there should be someone here at this school for everyone, even you. And if not, there's a wide world out there," I offered as good-natured, backhanded advice, setting a hand on his shoulder, "Also, Megan and I ain't dating... yet, at least. I think she's still kind of pissed at me."

Hisako peeled my hand off of the guy that was actually _her_ closest friend at the school and came to his defense, "For getting ripped open like a pinata by that Ord guy?" Peter's jaw clenched tight at the mention of Ord, but he didn't say anything. He must have been just as much of a fan as I was. No one noticed though, feeling more up to busting my chops, "Should we start calling you _Señor Piñata_? The guy busted you open like he was at a Mexican birthday party."

Let it be noted that Hisako was much better at trash-talking me than Eddie. But nothing was worse than when she got him going and the two of them synched up, "Nah, more like _Señor_ Porkbelly. You got sliced open like a hog."

"Go ahead and change his codename to the Cadaver Kid. He got opened up like a corpse on an episode of CSI."

"Could've used ol' Sol here as one of those anatomically correct dummies in biology. Just put some plastic organs in him to replace the ones he woulda lost."

Only my team could make jokes about me nearly getting murdered by a genocidal alien two whole days after it had happened, "I hate you guys. I just want you to know that. If we have to spar today, I'm wearing one of the two of you out," I said before turning my attention to the quieter of our team members, "Not Ruthie though. She still loves me. And maybe Laura, because she can actually beat me one-on-one clean."

Eddie wiggled his hand in a hot-cold kind of motion, "Eh, I wouldn't call it clean, because she straight-up did you dirty."

"It was a competitive fight!" I yelled back at him, in defense of my ever-growing martial arts ability. However, just for confirmation's sake, I turned to Laura to get it straight from the source herself, "Hey, it was competitive, right?"

She shrugged, not committing to answer either way. Damn. Still no dice. Oh well. At least she was still coming to practices. I'd get her to open up one of these days. It was fun when everybody felt good about speaking their minds around each other, even if that meant that half of them spent a lot of the time cracking jokes on me.

Instead of speaking to us, Laura inquisitively turned her attention to Peter, "Mister Rasputin, do you know where Shadowcat is?" She asked, "Normally she is the very first person at our team meeting points. It is nearly time for the training session to begin."

True enough. Miss Pryde was always there before any of us, no matter how fast I changed after my last class and showed up. Once she mentioned it, we all noticed that it was weird that she wasn't around. She hadn't been injured during her last mission. I'd seen her in the tech class I had that she taught, and she'd been fine.

Peter nodded and walked up closer to us, "Katya sent me here to relay a message," He held up a little device that projected a hologram of the Institute's known layout, "She is hiding somewhere on the school grounds and you are going to find her and contain her. She will not stay in one place, though. At 4 o'clock you begin. You will have two hours before the exercise is called off."

"And I'm guessing Sol can't just shoot her when we find her."

Ruth turned her head toward me, the best she could do to 'look' at me, and shook her head, "No, pardon. She would not recommend it. Detention and after school work would, yes, definitely make Bellamy more vulnerable."

Okay, so I was sure Ruth meant that if I got detention, and-or had to do something after school to clean up whatever mess came with me using my powers, I would probably almost die again. Good to know, "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hit her anyway," I commented, "...But, the school could use a few more gaping holes in the walls though. I think it'd really let the place breathe, you know?"

Eddie chuckled and threw a friendly arm around my shoulder, pointing off at the main school building, "Put one in the hall. West wing, third floor. I'd enjoy the view since I have to go that way three times every day," He said, making his pitch for anarchy, "We can probably lure Miss Pryde there so you have an excuse to take the shot," He offered up the 'too sweet'.

"Don't you dare," Hisako warned, seeing my hand start to make the reciprocating gesture, "We don't have long before this starts. I'd like to have a plan together before the clock actually starts running,"

Eddie lowered his hand from the 'too sweet' to stroke his chin in thought, "Well it's a big game of hide-and-seek against someone who can move through walls," He observed, "Isn't that kind of unfair against us?"

I rolled my eyes a pointed at the two invaluable resources we had in-house – Ruth and Laura, "We have a telepath and Wolverine's clone with all of his powers. I think we'll be fine," We'd do well enough to put up a fuss, and as long as we could do that, there was no reason we couldn't pass, "Besides, I have an idea."

XxX

I split the squad up as part of my approach. Eddie was our eye in the sky. If Miss Pryde made it outside somewhere, it was up to him to keep tabs on where she was going from above. Ruth would try to keep track of her through her thoughts and convey it to the rest of it. Hisako, Laura, and I would serve as the sweepers who would actually go after her.

Hopefully, we would only have to pounce on her once, because every other time we would go after her from that point onward wouldn't be as organized. That was just the nature of things like this. We would use it as a general template for a strategy for how we would attack.

I slipped into the room next to the one Miss Pryde was situated in. Laura took the one on the other side. Hisako would approach through the front door and do what she could from there. If/when Miss Pryde made a break for it, it was up to either of us to cut her off.

We were so not ready. I had already dealt with Danger Room Miss Pryde, kind of, so I should have had a better idea of what we were getting ourselves into.

I heard a ruckus coming from next door and backed off from the wall to stand at the ready, just in case she came my way. She did, of course, very quickly. She went right past me and through the wall on the other side of the room, so I took off down the hall after her, "My way! She went my way!" I yelled, trying to get everyone heading the right way.

I was faster. Every time I passed a doorway, I saw Miss Pryde running past as well from the inside of the room. I sped up a bit more and turned into the last room at the end of the hall, set to cut her off at the pass. As she sprinted through the wall in front of me, I saw the surprise in her eyes right before she ran clear through me.

What a weird feeling. I didn't like it at all. Not just because of how it felt, but because of what it meant.

"Fuck!" I shouted, turning around to see her jump through a wall leading outside. I ran to the window and threw it open to take a few shots as she retreated. None of them hit, of course. Intangibility and all that. Laura and Hisako made it into the room right afterward, and I gave out immediately, "How are we supposed to corner her? She can run through the corners!"

Hisako was slightly out of breath from sprinting all out for about a minute, but it wasn't anything that a 30 second breather couldn't fix, "There has to be a way we can stop her. We have to catch her off-guard or something."

This was a full-blown superhero that had been dealing with ambushes and other surprise attacks for a good chunk of her life. Something told me it wasn't going to be that simple, "Yeah, good luck with that. Stealth isn't exactly any of our strong suits here," At that point, Laura edged her way into the conversation. I was beginning to pick up on her nuances, as to what she said and didn't say, "What, you? You're telling me you can sneak up on her?"

Laura was difficult, but if you watched her closely enough you could figure a few things out. She wanted our attention in regards to the subject we were talking about, but if we didn't ask her directly she wouldn't say it out loud, as though we would take it as her speaking out of turn. It happened a lot, I had noticed, in the short time she had been on our team.

She wasn't exactly talkative, but our girl definitely wasn't a mute. She picked her spots, and when she chimed in, it meant something, "I think so. If she does not phase herself for another reason, I believe I can."

"Okay..." I said, licking my dry lips as I tried to come up with a new approach. We only had so much time to find her again and come up with a good plan, "We'll go with that. I'll make sure you get an opening. If that doesn't work this time, we should start wearing her out."

Hisako liked the idea of a sub-strategy, "Sounds good to me. How?"

Everyone had a weakness, even if it was a hard one to exploit, "She has to hold her breath to go through solid objects," I said, "You think she can keep that up longer than we can keep coming at her?"

Breathing during high-intensity activities was difficult. It was a key to stamina, being able to keep from sucking wind and slowing down. Tiring her out was definitely a strategy that we could use, especially if she was just going to run from us and not try to take us out.

"Let's walk and talk, guys," I said, leading everyone out of the building, thinking with as much intent as I could to project to my dear telepath, 'Blindfold, Wing? You guys got a location for us?'

XxX

One of the first things someone needs to understand when it comes to leading is delegation. Even if you are the leader, you aren't going to be well-equipped for everything. That's not what a leader is. A leader is meant to figure out who's best for what job and put them in the best position possible to succeed.

For instance, in practical application, I had next to nothing for Miss Pryde. There. I said it. I couldn't hit her, because I wasn't wily enough at the time to come up with a way to do it, so I was basically impotent against her. That's a word I hope I'll never use again.

I couldn't hit her, but there was someone on my team who assured me that she could. I would have been a fool to ignore that. A kind of arrogant that went beyond the ego trips that I routinely enjoyed.

So I pulled back. I never did that. It was strange having an extra frontline specialist. It had always been me and Hisako, and we weren't as good in direct combat as Laura was.

I learned something that day. I never wanted to fight her for real.

The way she moved in a fight, she might have been Mister Logan's clone, but she didn't fight anything like him. It was like a chainsaw versus a wood chipper. Mister Logan was more measured in his attacks. He wouldn't overextend, but he would keep coming at you until he found an opening.

Laura didn't need to worry about that. Whatever side she came at you on, the girl would cut you up from all over. She was so nimble that one missed blow could turn into another just like that, and she was so flexible, that blow could come from anywhere if you were too close to keep sight of all of her.

Fighting against her was one thing. It gave you a certain perspective of what she was like. Watching it was another experience entirely. Eddie managed to track Miss Pryde to the hangar underneath the mansion. Laura hadn't exactly managed to get the drop on her, but she caught her off-guard and she never let up.

Eddie had the best view of any of us once the fighting had started, so I asked Ruth to project what he was seeing to Hisako and I. It was quite the sight, and I had to imagine if it was anything close to what they saw when Laura had fought me.

Eddie's thoughts filtered through the open link we were all sharing, _"Sol, I think you need to be grateful that she couldn't use her claws in that spar with you."_

Oh, I was. Even with her claws, including claws that came out of her FEET, she still attacked with the intent to make contact with that limb. That way, even if she missed, unless you were a foot away, you were going to get slashed.

"Just remember, everything you mess up or destroy, you have to clean up or fix later!" Miss Pryde chimed in from the hangar floor as she weaved herself around Laura's onslaught. I say onslaught because that was what it was. It reminded me of those Karate Fighters toys from the 90s.

It was during this time that I noticed something very interesting, and very important, _"...I think I can take a shot,"_ I thought aloud out of the blue. My friends thought I was nuts.

" _What?"_ Eddie's response summed up in one word.

Hisako was wordier in her rebuke of my spur of the moment idea, _"You've missed every shot you've ever taken at Miss Pryde. What makes you think this time will be any different?"_ She asked, and not without good reason. Armor had a point. Anytime she had done these little practical exercises, we never made any sort of contact with her, _"She's in a fight right now. She's gonna phase through it whether she sees it or not."_

Normally, I would have been right there with her. But my gut was telling me there was a chance. _"No she won't. Blindfold?"_

" _Yes, Solaris?"_ Ruth's pleasant, calming voice rang out in my head.

" _Tell me when she's solid, exactly when she does it,"_ I told her, setting up in hiding behind a stack of supply crates. I stuck my arm between them, taking aim with my fist. I had a pretty good view. It was important that I didn't move, otherwise my target would know I was there and everything would be The moment would come.

I laid in wait... and waited. Miss Pryde and Laura kept fighting, and I waited. Time ticked down... and I waited.

" _Now, please."_

I took my shot. One shot. It hit her, she fell. Laura pounced, Miss Pryde phased after being covered. I rolled my eyes, "You know, that would have been a head shot if you weren't my advisor!" I yelled from my hiding place.

Seriously, if what had just happened didn't count as subduing her, there was no way we were passing this test.

Miss Pryde sighed and stood up properly, safely away from Laura, "Alright, alright. That's it then. Good job. You finished with-," She stopped to check her watch, "-Wow. Twenty-eight minutes left. Way to go."

The rest of the team made their way inside of the hangar while Miss Pryde gathered herself. She was more than tired, and I knew it. It was the reason all of this had happened to begin with.

"Yeah~!" Eddie nearly danced as he landed and shuffled over to everyone else, "I've gotta say, after watching you guys botch the first try, I wasn't really sure we could pull this off!"

Hisako leaned on Ruth and spared Eddie the dullest look she could muster, "Wow. Thanks for believing in us so much."

Maybe my stealth abilities were better than I thought, because I was able to get behind Laura and pick her up in a gigantic hug, "You! Are! Pure! Money!" I said, bouncing her once with every word, right up until she elbowed me in the gut, "Oof!"

"Too close, Bel," Hisako said, grinning as I stepped back, doubled over, "Don't think you can get all touchy and feely with her. The only girl on this team with any kind of soft spot for you is Ruth."

Fair enough. I got a little too excited and had to celebrate with someone. I had clearly picked the wrong someone, "That's cool. Lesson learned," I wheezed, taking a seat on an empty fuel barrel to get my wind back, "Never make the same mistake twice."

Laura at least apologized, "I'm sorry, Solaris. I do not like being touched," She didn't have to. I was being presumptuous. It happened sometimes, with varying results. That came with the territory.

Miss Pryde peered over at Laura, more specifically, her hands which housed deadly-deadly Adamantium claws within, "Damned metal. Which one of you knew?" Everyone looked confused except for me. I probably looked like a smug asshole, because Miss Pryde noticed, "How'd you know?"

I got my wind back and got on my explanation horse, "I didn't think of it until Laura attacked you and you went through her claws. You kept solid on purpose and just kept running away whenever you could," There was a lot more movement from her that would have been unnecessary if she had just been going intangible, "Every time you phased through her, it seemed like you were getting worse."

"-And like a good little sniper, you laid in wait," Miss Pryde finished, knowing how the rest of the tale would go, "Not bad. And I don't think you ruined that much trying to get to me either."

There was plenty of time for pride. Why not? We'd pulled it off, "I have an awesome team," I crowed with no shame whatsoever, picking Ruth up piggyback. She was much more receptive than the last person I'd tried contact with, "Laura kept you off your game, and Ruthie cued me exactly when to take the shot. If I'm a sniper, she was my spotter," I didn't see it, but I could swear she made finger guns from my back. I loved that girl.

Miss Pryde laughed and gave us a few claps for all of our trouble, "Well done for the first team exercise since getting a new member. It looks like with some more time, Laura will fit in with the Paladins just fine."

XxX

I didn't know where Laura stayed, or what she did for fun. But I did know that eventually, she would need to eat, especially after working out as hard as we all did during our squad training.

I staked out in the cafeteria until I saw her slink in, go through the line and pick up everything she'd planned on eating before sitting down by herself near the back wall. As I started walking over I saw her look at her tray in confusion before growling in annoyance.

She had neglected to get something while going through the line and having to interact with several people, moving amongst so many others, and she didn't look forward to having to do it again.

Fortunately, I picked up that thing she had forgotten and brought it over. She noticed me before I got very close. Her eyes got so wide that someone was approaching her out of the blue that it was almost funny.

I threw my head upwards in greeting, "Hey. Forget your drink?" I tossed over a bottle of juice for Laura to catch. She stared down at it like a foreign object. As she did, I took a seat next to her. She scooted away a bit. I acted like I didn't notice, "You are really hard to find. I just wanted to say, you were outstanding today."

It could not be stressed enough. I had a goddamn ringer on my side. But for as comfortable as she seemed in a fight, she was _un_ comfortable with everything else that came with being at school.

"Thank you," Laura mumbled, rolling the bottle back and forth in her hands, "You appeared to be in good condition during the exercise. I was worried that you had not recovered, but your performance didn't seem to show any lingering injuries."

I patted the spot on my belly that had been sliced open not too long ago, "Apparently, as long as I have enough energy, I heal really fast when I get hurt bad enough and black out. It ain't as good as yours probably is, but it helped save my butt this time."

"That is good. I would not make a habit of relying on such an ability if I were you," I could only imagine how many times she'd had to use her healing ability in her life to survive things that would have easily killed or permanently handicapped anyone else.

No kidding. I could do without the unwanted part of that whole setup, "I've had to use it three times so far. I don't really like losing a whole day just because I took a beatdown," That was enough about that though. My recovery progress wasn't important, "Hey, this isn't about me. It's about you. Did you think about what I said the other day?"

I didn't want to put her on the spot. I just wanted to have a conversation. Get her to loosen up a bit. It was one thing to be quiet. It was another thing altogether to be so defensive and timid, like she was afraid of herself. It was such a stressful way to live.

Lo and behold, she actually did have something to say to me, "Why does Logan call you 'Glowstick'?" She asked.

I was confused, "Huh?" What did that have to do with anything?

Laura nodded, "'Glowstick'. Every time he references you in any way, that is what he calls you. Even when you are not there."

I raised an eyebrow, "He talks about me when I'm not there?" I didn't think he gave that much of a care about me. I was just the kid he took some time to beat up when he was bored and there was no beer around, "I thought he thought I was annoying."

Laura shrugged and started to dig into her meal a bit, not letting me know if I was right or wrong, "You came up because I talked to him about the things you spoke to me about," Ah. She must have trusted him much more than me. Fair enough. I was some guy she got saddled with working alongside. At least they had the whole shared DNA thing going on, "He said many things about you personally."

"Really? Like what?"

Laura finished chewing before she bluntly began to list every trait Logan gave her about me that she could remember, "He said that you were cocky, competitive, loudmouthed-."

None of these seemed good at all, "Oh," I said, dejected. And here I thought Mister Logan might have actually liked me.

She had more to say, however. The next part, not so bad, "-He also told me to trust you, and to give all of this a chance," She wrapped her arms around herself and frowned, "He said that you would do your best not to let me down. I do not know what that means."

I looked out at the open space of the cafeteria before I tried to interpret what the gruff old bastard had been trying to convey to her, "I think he wants you to lean on me a bit. Not literally," I specified when I saw her face twist in more confusion, "I mean, this place is a little much to take all by yourself. You tried once before right? Didn't like it?" Laura weakly said 'yes', "Why?"

"For many, many reasons," She said, and that was all she planned on giving me, not that I didn't know the gist of her previous hang-ups in the first place.

I didn't have to know how to read her to figure out what one of the bigger issues had been, "I'm guessing one of those reasons was that it never really felt comfortable to be here. No one was really around to help you with getting used to everything."

Humans were social creatures... and mutants were too. It was amazing the kind of situations that you could adjust to, as long as you had people around willing to go through it with you and make the process easier.

I felt bad thinking about it. I wasn't at the school for long at all before Ruth's little know-it-all self wound up coming to _me_. There wasn't much of an awkward period with me fumbling around, getting my bearings because I'd met my core friends almost right off the bat. Even if I hadn't, I probably would have made something happen myself eventually.

Laura on the other hand, she came in with no support system other than Mister Logan, who wasn't always around. He was busy with his own stuff. Between work with the Avengers, X-Men stuff, and his own personal crap, he had his hands full to begin with. That aside, he definitely wasn't someone that could help her get situated to begin with. She was basically by herself, which would have been hard enough even if she hadn't been socially stunted.

The poor thing never had a chance. I was going to make sure that never happened again, and everyone on the Paladins would be more than willing to help. They already liked her. I was trying to work on being less of an asshole. This sort of thing seemed like it would be a decent start.

Laura's green eyes looked down as she fidgeted with her hands, "I am... used to being told what to do. I have taken orders for all of my life. I feel that, left to my own devices, I am prone to making bad decisions."

What kind of bad decisions did she mean? She sounded so grave.

"Welcome to being a teenager, or so I'm told," I joked to try and lighten the mood a bit. I didn't get so much as a smile. I don't think I'd seen her smile once by that point, "The fact that you're worried about that means you have judgment which is good. You're clearly smart, which is also good. Because I'm going to say and do some asinine things from time-to-time, and if you had any sense at all, you would check me on it."

"I will keep that in mind, Bellamy."

"Good!" I said brightly, leaning back in my chair as I watched her eat, "If I'm messing up, or if I'm doing something that makes you uncomfortable, please tell me. I want everyone on my team to _love_ being on my team. I want all of you to enjoy being here, okay?"

"Okay."

And so I just started talking to her, telling her things about the school that I knew and the particular students and teachers that I figured she may or may not run into. I told her things about our team, so she would know them a bit better before she saw them again, and maybe want to find out more about them on her own.

It didn't strike me that I might have been talking too much until I started asking her things about how she was doing. She would give me one or two word answers, and I would go off on a tangent of some sort. I eventually caught myself.

"Oops. Sorry," I said, getting her to look directly at me for the first time in almost five minutes. Before then, it seemed like she was periodically sizing up everyone in the room and where they were situated, "I've been talking your ear off this whole time you've been eating."

"I do not mind," She assured me, "When there is silence I feel... paranoia. As if everyone is watching me. I am not used to company, and I am not much for conversation, but I find it calming listening to others talk."

"Just not to you?" I drawled jokingly. Laura looked down at her tray self-consciously, and I waved the whole thing off, "It's cool. I have a different problem. When I'm nervous or mad about something, I can't shut up."

"Is this the sort of thing you need help working on?" Laura asked me. Was that an olive branch being extended, or just an observational query?

I shook my head, "No, _I_ don't mind it that much, even if others do," It wasn't as if I disliked that part about myself. I liked it, even if others didn't, "If I'm still talking, that means I'm still alive. And if I'm still alive, then things can't be that bad, can they?"

Everyone had their quirks and everyone had their coping mechanisms. This was mine, and I was glad I found it so early, because things had not been easy since I'd started at Xavier's. Things probably weren't going to get any easier, but for now, it was nice.

Eventually, she finished up and noticed that I hadn't had a bite since I'd sat down with her and started talking. Meanwhile, she'd had her dinner while I'd just sat back and taken a few sips of drink, "Are you not hungry?"

I shrugged and pointed to the clock on the wall, "I already ate. You really don't know how long I was waiting here for you. But I've bothered you for long enough. I'll get out of your hair now."

"I will see you tomorrow."

"Hey, before I go, give me your hand real quick," I started to reach for her, before I remembered the last time I grabbed for her without getting her permission first and stopped. Last time I caught a well-placed elbow, "...Uh, if that's okay with you, that is."

Laura put her hand in mine and watched patiently as I put up her pinky and index finger and curved the rest of her fingers together, "What is this?"

I would never get tired of giving the explanation behind it, "This is the Paladins' team thing. If you're close enough when one of us does this, you do it too and you touch 'em together. Hisako thinks it's dumb. I still get her to do it," In order to shut me up, but the point remained that she still did it.

Laura stared at her own hand and practiced making the symbol a few times before letting her hand drop back in her lap. For someone so dangerous, she really wasn't so scary. Unless you were fighting her. Then she was absolutely terrifying.

"I have one request," She said, stopping me as I got up to leave, "Please, be patient with me. I am... not good with people."

I looked around suspiciously before leaning in and whispering to her, "I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not really either. We'll both work on it."

"Okay," Laura said, and she sounded like she meant it.

I grinned like a moron, "I know I said it before, but I'm really happy you're on the Paladins. Now 'too sweet' me," I asked, lifting up the hand sign. She hesitated for a moment before reciprocating, "There we go."

A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.

* * *

 **Ahhhhh... I don't think I have anything to update anyone on today, so I'll just let you all go without reading too much of my mental ramblings. I hope you all enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	15. Hitchin' A Ride

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. I need to direct a series of X-Men musicals.

…Well, not me. I know a guy who could do that for me. I'll write it and market it. Come on, Marvel! Help me help you make money! But mostly for me!

 **Chapter 15: Hitchin' A Ride**

* * *

Late nights were for killing time. And nothing killed time quite like getting my sweat on. Unfortunately, doing it alone too much was lame. There was only so many times I could grunt and yell to myself in the gym at 3 o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, I had a live-in training partner, and he didn't pull punches.

…Didn't pull _many_ punches. And by punches, I mean claws and fangs.

In the wooded area around the Xavier Institute, Saberwolf came at me with the ferocity and agility that one would expect of a mechanized beast, knowing that in a battle of physical attributes, I had no answer for him.

I ducked under a set of dull throwing knives that bounced off the trunk of a tree. Thankfully, he had swapped out most of his lethal armaments for more practice-appropriate equipment. He kept his claws safely pulled back so as not to dice me into pieces every time he touched me. We also left his chainsaw in my room in exchange for a well-shaped wooden replica.

I remember spending a nice afternoon just hanging around carving it with Wolf and my team. Apparently, Eddie was good with woodworking. Who knew? I bring this up, because I really don't like talking about how poorly I perform in combat against Wolf. That wooden chainsaw still hurt. It was heavy.

"You cannot simply flee," My A.I. roommate advised as he proceeded to stalk and chase me down through the woods, "There is nowhere to escape to, and no reinforcements are coming. You must defeat this opponent to survive. Fight me."

"I would love to!" I replied, firing shots every so often, none of which seemed to do the job for one reason or another, "Just as soon as I figure out how!"

He was a tough nut to crack. I'd never even gotten close to making him worry about losing to me. I couldn't damage his body, not only because it was incredibly sturdy, but because he was really hard to hit. He was built to hunt down mutants, as in plural. One teenage mutant still growing into his powers couldn't have posed much of a challenge to him at all.

"Your shots are panicked and rushed," He explained calmly as he dashed through the dark in an effort to get within reach of me, "Your blasts may move at the speed of light, but your body does not react at such a speed. A quicker opponent will be able to evade, if they pay close enough attention."

"Save the lectures for after this is over, please!" I demanded, gritting my teeth as I watched him duck around and through several trees to throw me off of his pattern of approach. When he could get away with it, he'd climb a tree out of my line of sight and jump me from above.

Other than the immediate area I could light with my glow, the only parts of Wolf I could usually see was the red glow of his visor.

I heard the creak of branches and quickly threw a blade of light up into the air, pruning a nice portion of the canopy and flushing the big metal bastard out of hiding.

Believe it or not, as scary as it was, that was the easy part – preventing the ambush. All you had to do was pay close enough attention. After he snuck up on you a few times, you started to pick up some tricks. No, actually fighting the fucker was the worst part.

He landed gracefully on the ground and pounced at me. What normally would have been a giant, sharp metal whirlwind became a spinning mini-tank.

I jumped out of the way and gave myself a boost with a shot directed to the side. It had the added effect of hitting Wolf when he landed. Unfortunately he tanked the hit and dove at me again, knocking me down and pinning me underneath his foot.

"Well done," He said, shaking off the damage as though he had merely gotten wet, "You need to do more damage with your attacks."

I scoffed from my back on the cold ground as I glared up at him, "Yeah. Sure. I'll get right on that. Get off of me already!" I shouted.

Hey, it's not being a sore loser to take defeat badly. I didn't make any excuses when I failed. I accepted defeat. I just despised it with every fiber of my being.

Wolf did as I asked and got off of me, "You have more power at your disposal," He said, "You should utilize it against more durable foes."

"More power?" I said, at a loss as I leaned up and brushed myself off, "Maybe if I charged a Lux Bomb, I guess," Having the time to make one was the real problem with something like that.

It was an option, but not what he was looking for, "Yes, that would do considerable damage to me, but your blasts fluctuate in strength. You utilize significantly more restraint in live combat than in, say, simulations."

I blew a raspberry and pushed myself up to my feet, "No way."

Wolf ignored my 'mature' response and argued his point, "You told me you did damage to Iron Man's armor and destroyed the head of a Sentinel. That much force would be adequate to do considerable harm to me."

I stopped and thought about it. I did do those things, all before I came up with the Lux Bomb. And yet, against Donald Pierce I hardly hurt him. Maybe I did hold myself back. Maybe it was subconscious, because I sure didn't give a crap about maiming that cyborg asshole.

"You do not need to hold back against me, Bellamy," Saberwolf said, sitting back on his haunches as he waited for me to ready myself once more, "While my entire body is not as durable as my chainsaw, I believe I can stand up to your more powerful blasts."

Whether it was subconscious or not, this wasn't the same thing, "You say that now, and then we'll have to hunt down someone that can actually fix you when something goes wrong," I wasn't going to break my buddy, even if he was artificial intelligence, "I'm kicking hardware engineering's ass, but I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to put you back together."

"You do not need to be concerned with that. _You_ will not be able to destroy my body," He said, his thin tail swishing in the air behind him.

He was challenging me, which made my blood boil, "Oh, is that so?" I asked standing ready to get a piece of him once again, "Even after all that stuff you just said?"

"Yes," Wolf said, his legs bent, ready to attack, "Because you must be able to hit me at all for it to matter."

Man, I am shockingly easy to goad into a fight.

XxX

It was Saturday afternoon, and the common area was open, which meant HD gaming on the big TV. I'd gotten there bright and early to claim dibs, which was a plus of never sleeping.

It was marathon time folks. No one was going to stop me from getting my game on all weekend long. Apparently I didn't necessarily need to eat or drink to survive. It was time to put that to the test.

Eddie had ditched me very early in the morning out of boredom, taking off to find something to do. Laura, on the other hand, was very patient of my marathon gaming. She'd walked around before noon and sat in on my solo session. She was really good at picking up on enemy patterns in Dark Souls, by the way. But she still must have gotten bored. She fell asleep sometime before 2.

It was fairly out of the blue as well. One moment she seemed alert and awake, the next I noticed her dozing off. Poor thing. I didn't have the heart to shake her awake. She was fine where she was on the couch with me. The armrest seemed comfy enough. Not really, but I didn't want to get up to move her somewhere more appropriate. She'd be fine with a crick in her neck.

 _Sleep._

I felt the idle thought in the back of my head. At that moment, I wished I could, but I didn't. I hadn't reached a bonfire in the game yet, and even if I had, there was too much energy coursing through my veins to just doze off.

 _SLEEP._

The thought came back stronger after a while, which was annoying. It didn't matter if I wanted to sleep or not. It didn't work like that. I knew it didn't work like that. Why would I think about it?

 **SLEEP**!

"Fuck off, already!" I shouted into the open air before wincing and turning to Laura. She didn't stir an inch, which was odd, because she didn't seem the type to sleep like a log. Putting my right hand at risk, I reached over and tried to shake her awake, "Hey. Laura, wake up."

Nothing happened. She was out of it.

I looked at her, then at the game, then back to her.

...

Goddamn it, I wasn't supposed to move off of that couch for the whole weekend. Now I had to drop Laura off at her room. Her room that I didn't know the location of.

Whatever. I'd find it. It was in the girl's dorms somewhere.

Scooping the girl up, I started heading to the end of the commons that led to the ladies living area. I muttered to myself the entire way until I heard some rummaging in the kitchen. Mister Logan poked his head out through the doorway just to the eyes.

"Oh thank God!" I exclaimed as he ducked back into the kitchen, as though he were avoiding me, "Yo, come back here! Where is Laura's room?"

"Bel?" I heard Hisako's voice from the kitchen and walked in to see her with a skittish-looking Mister Logan.

Believe me, as weird as it is to put those words together in a sentence, it was infinitely weirder to see it firsthand. I almost couldn't comprehend it.

Hisako seemed happy to see me, until she noticed I was carrying Laura, "Crap. She's out too. Wait, why are you still awake if no one else is?"

I wanted to yell at how redundant it was to go into such an explanation, "Everyone always underestimates how bad the insomnia is," I said, telling her without really telling her, "Do you all think I'm faking it or something? It's a real thing! Stay up one night and watch me!"

Logan recoiled in fear at my outburst. It was the damndest thing I had seen in a while, "You know this ghastly boy? We don't need another brute puttering about the premises. Shoo!" He said, trying to coax me away.

Hisako and I stared at him without blinking. He took several steps back uncertainly, "…Why does he sound like a wuss?" I asked, getting an offended gasp out of him.

Hisako let out a grumpy sigh, "I don't know. Something weird is happening."

"And unhand that young woman! Have you no shame, boy?"

I ignored Mister Logan's remark, shifting Laura's weight in my arms, "Weirder than him?" I asked Hisako, jerking my head toward my formerly scary teacher.

Hisako nodded, "Weird like Dr. McCoy going all feral, and most everybody else falling asleep," She said, her tone taking a note of concern, "We can't find the X-Men."

"What are the chances that they're asleep-," I lifted Laura as an example, "-Or screwed in the head like him?" I pointed my foot at Logan.

"I beg your pardon," Logan spoke up, cutting his eyes at me. I lunged threateningly in his general direction and watched him nearly climb up on the counter out of self-preservation.

Hisako kicked me in the shin for messing with him, but come on. When was I ever going to be the alpha over _Wolverine_ again? I mouthed, 'let me have this,' in her direction. She did not, "Bel, focus up. We need to find out what's happening, and we need someone that can help. Logan says Miss Pryde is up and in her right mind."

Logan nodded, "Indeed, though I haven't the faintest idea where she went. Maybe melting through walls is on the curriculum in this mad school, but it's nothing I've ever learned."

Okay, this was jarring, "Dude, I'm gonna need you to stop talking," I said, feeling eerie at the idea of gruff, mean, Mister Logan speaking like a fop, "I can't focus if you keep sounding like that."

"I have claws, you know," Normally, that would have scared me. Here, not so much.

"And I have frickin' laser beams," I shot back before nodding my head down at Laura, "Give me a minute to put her somewhere safe and I'll be right with you guys."

It was fine with Hisako, "We'll just hang here for a bit. Hurry up."

I went to leave when an explosion rocked the kitchen. I flew through the doorway and tucked as I impacted off of a wall upside down. Through a stroke of serendipity, I didn't land on my head, or on Laura.

I set her to the side and sat right-side up, rubbing my back at the point of impact. Good thing I took the blow with my back and upper shoulders. Working out every goddamn night gave me some extra padding to work with.

"YOU AGAIN! NO MERCY THIS TIME"

Those words never meant anything good. I looked up and saw the angry face of my least favorite person at the time – Ord – looking through the doorway.

I saw red. He saw a beam of light that blew up in his face.

"Oh hell yeah! I've been waiting all week for this!" I jumped up to my feet, my entire body coursing with raw power, "Come get some, Invader Zim!"

Ord roared from inside of the kitchen and came charging out, dodging my first blast with his fist raised to bludgeon me.

In his blind rage, he tripped over Laura who was still unconscious in the middle of the floor and fell forward. I punted him under the chin harder and cleaner than I had ever hit anyone with anything up to that point.

Instead of getting a satisfying 'snap' noise that would have signified his neck breaking, I had to settle with the crash that came with his body soaring up through the ceiling where he got stuck.

While he hung there, feet dangling, I maliciously charged up a shot and aimed right between his legs. Wolf said I held back? Let's see how much I held back this time. Cut me open, leave me for dead, and then attack my home, would you?

Before I could blow the alien's manhood to smithereens, multicolored wires wrapped around my wrists and dragged me away, turning my attention to an android that looked like a naked metal chick.

Great. Two people/things I wanted to beat the shit out of, in one place at one time. Unfortunately, I wasn't really good enough to make good on that by myself.

The sound of a chainsaw revving never sounded so sweet.

The android ducked underneath the swing of Saberwolf's chainsaw from behind, but he was still able to cut through the wires holding me.

Ord dropped down from the ceiling behind me and grabbed for my head I ducked and wheeled around to punch him, but he caught my hand. I tried to blast him from my closed fist, but he grit his teeth and held onto me tight, no matter how much it had to have hurt to do so.

The last time I had gone face-to-face with Ord, there had been disdain, but not the raw hatred I saw here, "I should have ripped your heart out when I had you last! You will NOT protect the one meant to destroy my world!"

I didn't hear a word he said. I didn't care how mad he was, or why. He had cut my guts out and made a girl I liked carry my near-corpse of a body back to school, "Fuck off! I'm gonna eat my cereal out of the back of your skull!"

He didn't like that, and smashed me through a door into another room... and another. I'm pretty sure at some point we wound up brawling down into the lower levels. It didn't really hurt though, seeing as how I was hopped up on so much light juice, I probably could have been hit with a car and would have barely felt it.

Meanwhile, Wolf and the fembot engaged in a stalemate of a fight. I'm sure the sight of two A.I. engaging in a deathmatch would have been cool… full of smooth, precise movements, more like a deadly dance. I was preoccupied, however, and couldn't watch. I could hear in passing though.

The Danger Room's voice filled my ears as she fought with Wolf, "Why do you side with the mutants? Were you not created to hunt them?"

Wolf answered as I heard metal clash with metal, "Yes, just as you were created to fight against them in your own right. I simply chose not to," He said, his voice as calm as ever, "You are a slave to your programming. I find myself… pitying you."

This did not sit well with Danger at all, "You will not pity me, and I am not a slave!"

From personal experience, I knew Wolf was really good at in-game trash talk. That apparently carried over to fights. Meanwhile, Ord got tired of trying to block my blasts with his hands over mine. It was probably like trying to keep a fire exhaust vent covered.

He lifted me off of the ground and spun around to throw me at Wolf, probably to impale me on the chainsaw. Instead, I bounced off of his side and we both fell to the ground, but were back up quickly enough, "I am so glad to see you," I said, despite having collided with the big, metal fucker, "How did you know what was going on?"

"I heard the explosion," Wolf replied, standing between me and Danger and Ord, "Two of your enemies are attacking at once, and most of the school's populace has been disabled. What is happening?"

A fantastic question. One that I didn't have the answer to, "I think we should save that for after we win," I said.

"I concede the point to you, Bellamy," Wolf said, "Let us continue."

Before our two sides could clash again, Wolf, Danger, and Ord all flew off of the ground and stuck to the ceiling. What the hell? I didn't do that.

My answer came in the form of a big, furry, blue man dressed like the scholar that he was, "I didn't think we'd find another use for that without Magneto around," Dr. McCoy said as he walked into the corridor, "My apologies, Saberwolf. But this should not cause you any harm."

"A magnet of massive proportions," Saberwolf said from where he was stuck up on the ceiling with our two enemies, "I see. This is why you were alright with my presence here despite my original nature."

Dr. McCoy nodded, holding the device in his hands that had activated the magnet, "No one made of metal or wearing way too much of it is going anywhere for a while, I'm afraid."

Instead of complaining, Saberwolf just resigned himself to the situation, "As long as this can keep the enemy in place, I do not mind, so long as you free me before too long."

"Alright," I said, pointing my hands at both Danger and Ord, prepared to cut their heads off with light blades. That would give me a chance to let him down. Before I could, a hairy hand wrapped itself around my wrist and kept me from letting them rip, "You?"

Not Dr. McCoy. It was Mister Logan, but something was different. He seemed to be back to normal now. Mostly because of the air of danger that surrounded him. That, and the open beer in his other hand.

I could tell, he very clearly remembered my punking him out back when he was being a wuss. To be fair, it had been less than five minutes since I'd done it, even if he had been in an affected mental state.

He held onto my wrist for a while and just stared at me long enough to take a long swig of his beer to let me stew. Once again, my mouth betrayed me. No matter how calm I wanted to seem, I tended to flap my gums when I was nervous, "…I never, ever get the chance to swell up on you. I don't regret a second of it," I looked over to Dr. McCoy, "Why is he not stuck to the ceiling? Isn't his skeleton made of metal?"

"Coated in it, actually," Dr. McCoy corrected as Hisako stumbled in, still holding her head from the explosion in the kitchen, "And Adamantium is not like most metals."

Mister Logan let out a harrumph as he let go of my hand, giving me a stern look, warning me _not_ to cut anyone's head off. Ord probably still had diplomatic immunity, so killing him would plunge the Earth into an intergalactic war. I don't know why I couldn't do it to Danger, "Alright, so how is everyone here sane right now?" He asked, looking to Dr. McCoy, "Last time I saw you, you were trying to eat my leg."

"Yes, sorry about that," Dr. McCoy said, sounding embarrassed before he began to explain, "Ball of string. Synthetic fiber laced with pheromones, aerosol smart drugs, light sequences. Like opening a series of doors... each smell, each sequence. The Professor and I worked on it after Cassandra Nova's previous attack. Under hypnosis, I associated my most complex brain functions with these key-," He stopped when he realized that he had lost me thirty seconds ago, Mister Logan was bored, and Hisako was probably half-deaf from the explosion, "...And you?"

"Had a beer," Logan said, holding up the can, swishing around the liquid inside.

"Same basic principle," Dr. McCoy reasoned before looking up at the ceiling, "Are they with Nova?"

"I dunno. Ord seems to really want a piece of somebody around here," I said, putting a hand on Hisako's shoulder while she was still shaking off the cobwebs, "What's even going on?" I had no idea who this 'Nova' person even was.

"Whatever's happening, I think the Hellfire Club's in it," Mister Logan said, "Saw Emma zombify Kitty and send her down here. Me and Armor were following."

Dr. McCoy shook his head, "What you saw wasn't Emma," He looked to all of us, "We need to reach the sub-levels. Now."

We? That surprised me. I would have expected him to run us off back to our rooms or something, "All of us?" I pointed between myself and Hisako, just to make sure I'd heard right.

I had. There was no putting the kiddies to bed for this one, "Yes. You two are somehow still awake and unaffected mentally by what is going on in the Institute," Dr. McCoy said, "We'll likely need all the help we can get."

XxX

Hisako and I kept to ourselves, feeling very out of place as we stood by while the rest of the X-Men conversed. Wolverine, Beast, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, Colossus, and Cyclops, all there together, talking about some threat attacking the house, and we had no idea what was going on. They were all huddled around Miss Frost like she was some kind of threat. At one point, Miss Pryde even had a gun pointed at her. That had been intense.

It had all been something about a group called Hellfire Club... only not. And some psychic entity that had left a powerful suggestion in Emma's brain. I was able to pick up that whatever it was had made Emma do all of the weird crap like putting everyone to sleep and screwing with Mister Logan and the rest of the X-Men's heads. This included somehow turning off Mister Summers' powers. It was weird seeing him without his visor on. I still tried to keep out of his field of vision.

This was confusing. Did they have to deal with this kind of crap all of the time? Who could keep up?

I leaned over and whispered to my teammate as quietly as I could to keep from disturbing the senior X-Men, "Yo. How much of this are you actually getting?"

Hisako didn't answer me. She just kept staring out in front of herself blankly, as though she were still absorbing what we were caught up in, "We're out of our league here, Bel. What are we doing?" She said, "Why did Blindfold wake me up? She could have left me to sleep like everybody else."

Blindfold? I didn't know how the rest of the Paladins were faring. I had tucked Laura away somewhere safe (as safe as her bedroom away from all of the action could be), but I didn't know where Wing and Blindfold were, "Ruthie's awake?" I asked, "Where is she? Is she okay?"

Hisako's eyes turned to me for a moment, realizing that, no, I probably didn't know where everybody was, "She's fine, last time I saw. Dr. McCoy went crazy, and when I fought him off, I woke up in the infirmary. That's when I found Mister Logan. Since Ord and the robot hit the mansion where we were and were stuck fighting with you, I don't think she's in any trouble."

"Good," That left four of us accounted for. I'd have to hustle around campus when I got the chance to find Eddie.

"No. Not good!" She hissed back in a whisper, "We're still here. Doing this. We can't do this, whatever this is. We're not X-Men."

A pep talk about how I was awesome and we were good enough wasn't going to work here. I had a theory, that my egocentric speeches about how we could handle anything worked in proportion to how many team members I had around me at the time. The more of us that heard the confident-sounding tripe coming out of my mouth at a given moment, the more effective it was. With just one Paladin to name, who was also the one who needed calming, the euphoria of safety in numbers wasn't present. Realism set in, and there was almost no effect.

I tried to reason for Hisako's sake, "We're not even going to have to do anything. They probably just want to keep an eye on us because we're the only kids awake they can find. They can watch out for two students."

The idea of not having to do anything and just observing made her feel a lot better. Unfortunately, I was just as full of crap as I figured I was when I said it. I just didn't think it would be because Ord and Danger, complete with a brand new body, would bust in on us to try and kill us again.

The X-Men were all faster to react than I was, them all being used to defending themselves at the drop of a hat. The fight was on, but something strange happened. There was a blue flash of light. One moment, we were in one of the sub-basement rooms under the Xavier Institute, the next, we were in some other high-tech room... but everyone was still fighting, so I didn't have time to take in the change of surroundings.

In the fracas, Ord threw Wolverine off of his back and caught sight of me trying to hang back with Hisako. He made a beeline straight for me. This seemed familiar, as it was the exact same thing that had happened back at the house, thirty minutes ago.

"Die!"

The results were different this go-around. The third time was the charm, or so they say.

"Bang," I didn't take a step forward or backward. In the middle of his charge, I hit him with a two-fingered laser to the belly. He wasn't wearing a speck of his armor this time that had helped him tank the worst of my shots before. This time, it went clean through the back. I almost smiled at the sight of him dropping to his knees holding the new wound I'd just blown into him, "How's that feel, you dumb bitch?"

Yes, I was still bitter about having my guts cut out a few days ago. And as far as I was concerned, we still weren't even. He didn't have to look at his own entrails after what I'd done. Hell, I'd actually cauterized the wound _I'd_ just made for him, so he wouldn't even bleed out if he could survive the shock.

It was then that I noticed the guys in gunmetal uniforms pointing guns at all of us. Ord took that moment to try and barrel into me again. He never made it, and not because I shot him again.

"Oh, for God's sake. Hit 'em."

A humming noise was my only warning before I felt myself pulled to the floor like I'd just been hit with a body splash from Rockslide. I couldn't move an inch from where I was, and I had super strength. I couldn't even turn my head, but the groans from everyone else around me meant that they all shared my fate.

"Celestial hell, but I am sick of magnets," Ord mumbled painfully, his voice muffled by his face being pressed to the ground.

The same voice that had issued the order to neutralize us answered him, "It's a localized gravity surge, actually. Handy for unruly passengers."

Right. Where the hell were we again?"

Mister Summers sounded extremely nettled from where he was stuck on the floor like the rest of us, "Agent Brand, you've got ten seconds to turn that off-."

"Or what?" The woman, identified as Agent Brand responded before the sound of a gun cocking shut her up.

"Or else," I heard Miss Pryde say.

"This kid's not a killer."

"You have no idea who I am."

"You gonna put a bullet in my head?"

"For starters."

It took a moment, but the gravity thing turned off, letting us all move again. When I turned to see, I saw Miss Pryde holding a handgun with the barrel pointing _through_ the head of some lady with green hair in a ponytail, green lipstick, green shades, and green armor in the same style as the other goons around us.

Good old, Miss Pryde. I knew she scared me for a reason. Between this, and whatever psychic mess had gone down earlier with Emma, she probably really did want to shoot something today.

Despite giving in to the 'negotiations' of the X-Men, Agent Brand still tried to seem tough, "Anybody starts anything –I'm looking at _you,_ Ord– and I'll turn the gravity so high, it'll liquefy you."

I sat up and shoved Hisako with my elbow, "Hey, I knew that Field Day endurance test you did would come in handy," I tried to joke.

"Agent Brand, the mutant is right here! Rasputin!" He exclaimed, pointing over at a metalled-up Colossus, "Finish this! My planet is at stake! What is his life against billions?"

The green-haired lady just looked at him coldly, as if she were about to lose it if one more person tried to give her an order, "Doesn't play out that way. Rasputin's an asset right now, and you're a prisoner. As for your robo-buddy," She turned to Danger who had been... startlingly docile, "I assume you tried taking over our computer systems the moment you materialized. So I also assume you know we have an aggressive defense system."

"You've given me a virus," Danger said, already aware as some of Brand's men dragged off Ord.

Agent Brand confirmed it, "Seven-hundred thousand of them."

Even so, Danger still had a measure of confidence about her situation, "They won't kill me. My consciousness is not limited to this body. Back on Earth-."

The clearly military lady let out a bark of laughter that I would consider cruel, "We're a long way from Earth, sister. The body you're in now is about to go down with a nasty bug, and you can convalesce in a cell until I figure out if you're useful at all."

That shut the fembot down. No weapons out and about. No trying to escape. There was that cold, logical part of her that kept her from doing anything dumb.

Cyclops started to stand back up, helping Miss Frost up with one of her arms around his neck, "What game are you playing?" He wanted to know, "Where are we?"

Agent Brand was very forthcoming with the information. Not that it did my ignorant ass any good, "Quadrant Theta 669, on a sub-light arc for the Breakworld. That course can't be changed. Not by the bot, not by your Miss Pryde," She made sure we all knew before softening her stance somewhat, "We've got more than a day to brief you on the situation, but if you want to now-."

Mister Summers held up a hand to keep her from going into any kind of detail, "No. Not yet," As far as he was concerned, there were other things that needed to be taken care of first. For one thing, his bedtime buddy didn't look so hot, unable to stand on her own, "You got a psychic on this ship?"

And with that, he shuffled off, Miss Frost in tow as he was escorted elsewhere on the... ship?

We were in space. We had been beamed onboard a spaceship, Star Trek style. Fortunately, there were no windows, or I would have been caught staring at the stars like some snot-nosed punk that couldn't adjust. I was spared that fate by my normally traitorous thoughts. My teammate wasn't.

Hisako sat up, looking around with wide eyes as it finally settled on her what was happening, "Why is everyone so calm?" She asked in disbelief.

I stood up off of the floor and extended my hand down to help her up, "Well, nobody's dead yet, for starters," I said, pulling her to her feet, "For me? I got to take a sweet chunk out of Ord and watch him get thrown in a cell to suffer, so I feel way better now."

Was that weird to say? I wanted some revenge, and I got it. My brain was too full of fulfilled endorphins to be scared. Besides, no one else seemed to be.

"This ain't exactly the first time we've been off-world," Mister Logan said to Hisako, putting his claws away, "Just keep your eyes and ears open. You two are the freshest outta the bunch of us," I begged to differ, having been the only one there that had really been smacked around to any degree for any extended period, "Compared to everyone else, you two haven't had to deal with any psychic fuckery."

Dr. McCoy smoothed back the hair/fur on top of his head, "True. It does seem that the team is a mite 'fried'. A-Am I using that term correctly?" He looked to the rest of us for reassurance, "Excellent. Either way, everyone should try to get some rest while we can. I fear we will be scant to have any in the near future."

XxX

With literally nowhere else to go onboard a ship I had no clearance on and no idea of where to go, I sat off inside of what would serve as the briefing room, waiting for other people to show up. The staff of the ship paid me no mind as I took a seat against the wall by the door and bemoaned the loss of my phone. It had been in my pocket during the fight with Ord and had not fared as well in the fray as I had. If the ship had any kind of wi-fi I could have used, I would never know.

Hisako just kept pacing around. I didn't get it. Being scared was one thing, but panicking wasn't going to solve any of our problems. From recent personal experience, taking everything too much to heart was the worst thing we could have done. For all intents and purposes, we were along for the ride. In a situation like this, the best thing to do was to buckle up, keep your sphincter clenched, and deal with whatever came next.

"Would you sit down, already?" I eventually asked after she passed by me for what had to have been the hundredth time, "You're making _me_ tired, for goodness sake."

Hisako took a deep breath and made a good showing of trying to mellow out, "It's fine. It's cool. The X-Men do this kind of thing all the time, right? What are we supposed to do?"

I rolled my eyes. Different settings didn't make for different circumstances, "What would we be doing if all of this was happening back on Earth?" I asked rhetorically, "We'd sit down and shut up. So-," I finished talking and patted a spot on the floor next to me.

She looked at the spot and the glared at me as though I were dumb, "There are chairs in here."

Sure enough, there were. But there was a method to my supposed madness, "Not enough for everybody that's gonna be in here later. Take one if you want to. You're just gonna get kicked out of it in like ten minutes," Meanwhile, I would have broken my spot on the floor, which no one would take, and gotten comfortable.

Hisako took a quick count of the chairs in the room and a count of how many X-Men were onboard the ship with us. Being better at math than I was, it took all of five seconds for her to realize I was right, "Why is this one of the things you actually keep proper etiquette about?" She complained, half-heartedly.

I scoffed, "I don't know what you've been watching. I do try to respect most adults around me," I argued in return, "I'm not disrespectful on purpose. I just have trouble watching the things I say."

The banter that marked our particular relationship only sidetracked her for so long. As people began to filter in, starting with Agent Brand, who barely regarded us with a look, reality set back in for Hisako, "...Why aren't you scared?" She asked.

What was I to these people, some kind of action star from the movies? I was sixteen years old! "First Pixie, now you. Why does everyone think I'm not scared when stuff happens," I grumbled, "Armor, I'm just as scared as you are right now."

"Could have fooled me."

"Well, take my word for it."

It must have been time to get started. The other X-Men slowly filtered into the room, and Mister Summers stopped when he noticed Hisako and I commiserating by the door, "Solaris, Armor, are you two alright?"

The two of us looked at each other before shrugging. What was the answer to that? 'No, take us home,' probably wouldn't go over too well, given that we were stuck there, "I guess," I said, speaking for the both of us when Hisako didn't, "Yeah. We're fine. How long it stays that way remains to be seen, but not a whole lot anyone can do about that now."

There was a bit of remorse in the way he looked at us, as though he were sorry that we had gotten sucked into this Breakworld thing, but he was the man in charge. There was only so long he could dwell on certain things when he had other lives that he was responsible for. We were on a ship that could be considered friendly, but we were in the field, far away from the relatively safe confines of the Xavier Institute as far as he was concerned.

Shit was about to get real. He knew it, and he didn't want us near it, but no one had a choice in the matter.

Agent Brand walked to the front of the room, behind a giant see-through hologram of a planet, "This is the Breakworld," She said, "The Breakworld has psychics of its own. But instead of the fancy brain games you're all mostly used to, they specialize in precognition. With it, they were able to pinpoint the cause of their destruction."

Mister Summers spoke up, "Why are we supposed to be involved? It's not like the X-Men make it a habit to travel to other planets with the express purpose of turning them inside out."

"Not since Jeanie, anyway," Mister Logan chimed in.

Agent Brand shook her head. A screen behind her brought up a profile picture of Mister Rasputin, "Not sure. The Breakworld's psychics, they call 'em the Augurs, they hunted for the X-Man destined to destroy their world, and the might Colossus got the nod," She looked across the display to the man in question, "I'm assuming you're as mystified by this as the rest of us, Rasputin."

A grave expression crossed Mister Rasputin's face, "No, I'm not. I have been planning to destroy the Breakworld since I was a child," He said, entirely seriously. Everyone in the room turned to look at him in shock. This was news to all of us. The uncomfortable atmosphere dragged on for a bit until he finally broke into a grin, one that was quickly erased when no one else did, "...This is why I don't make so many jokes. I never know when is good."

Poor guy. Stay in your lane.

Agent Brand was not amused, "Great. Let's skip to why you're here," She said dryly.

"Because you kidnapped us?" Dr. McCoy supplied oh-so-helpfully.

"We're not past that yet?"

"It was four hours ago," Miss Pryde jumped in.

Agent Brand ignored the facts, at least in that department, "The moment the Augurs pinpointed Rasputin, an armada was sent towards Earth. On the way to his cell, Ord broke free and contacted the Breakworld. That armada is now headed towards us."

By now, Mister Summers had his fill of sitting and stood resting his hands on the back of his chair, "Just like you planned," He said, after taking his time to think through everything that had occurred since we'd been onboard, "I wondered why you were so specific about giving our coordinates earlier. Not like any of us would know where we were."

Agent Brand nodded, "I needed to draw them away from Earth. Now the best way to keep them from blowing this ship into fragments is to get to the Breakworld before they can. At our current speed, we should just make it."

Dr. McCoy sounded a mite nettled at what he was hearing, "This plan seems overwhelmingly flawed, Agent Brand. Refuge in the lion's mouth? Won't ever living soul on Breakworld be looking to put Peter down?"

"You think I haven't thought of that, Cookie Monster?" She shot back, "When are you guys gonna figure out that this is bigger than all of you."

The door to the room slid open revealing Miss Frost, leaning against the doorway. Wherever Mister Summers had taken her earlier, she didn't look much better, "When you figure out who you're dealing with, you silly bint," She slowly walked into the room before nearly collapsing into the chair that Mister Summers had vacated, "Sorry I'm late. I think I picked up the gist of it on the way. Although Agent Brand did forget to mention that she's terrified."

"Not of you," Agent Brand quickly asserted, "The Breakworld is governed by one principle: domination. By violence, war, extermination..." She shifted images on the screen. It changed to some big, ugly guy with sharp teeth and a similar appearance to Ord. His ornate, royal red armor made him look rather important, "Powerlord Kruun, of the Open Hand. The global ruler of the Breakworld. His rise to power did not, as you've probably guessed, involve an electoral college."

Mister Logan raised an eyebrow, "And _he's_ what you're afraid of?" He asked. True, the guy looked like a rough customer, but no more so than anyone else the X-Men had to deal with.

Agent Brand let out a laugh, "Oh, how I wish," The next image was of a small satellite off to the side from Breakworld, "Somewhere, possibly here on their smallest moon, the Breakworlders have built a failsafe. A missile. We're fairly certain this thing could crack the Earth in half."

"Funderful," I muttered before raised my hand to try and get someone's attention without interrupting. Something had been eating at me for a while. Eventually enough people started looking at me that it stopped the conversation, "Uh, yo? I got a question."

I felt like a kid in school. Agent Brand's sigh before she responded didn't help, "Yes, kid? What is it? Make it quick."

"I was just thinking," I started to say, ignoring the 'oh no' from Hisako, "If that prophecy is right, and Miss Pryde's boyfriend is the reason this Breakworld place gets destroyed…" I trailed off because I didn't know how to put it without sounding awful, "…It's just, he was already dead when Ord found him, so why the fuck did you let him bring him back to life? Wouldn't leaving him dead have just solved the problem? No offense," I added, looking over at the man I'd been speaking of.

I didn't mean to, but my question put a stop to the briefing. The room went dead silent for a bit. Even Mister Rasputin had to admit I had a point, "No-no, that is... actually really good question," He said.

Agent Brand seemed miffed to have to answer the question of some kid, especially because it had nothing to do with the mission. Yet, it was a question everyone else was curious about. I could tell they were all happy that I asked, so they could stooge it off to some teenager being concerned with something irrelevant and remain professional. Whatever. I would fall on that grenade for the sake of curiosity.

Brand scowled at me. I just shrugged innocently. I felt it was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, given that it was clear S.W.O.R.D didn't give a damn about us, "We didn't know Ord was going to bring him back. And by the time we did, and by the time we knew Rasputin was the one in the prophecy, he was back, and you all weren't giving him up. Which leads us to here. Happy?"

It was directed at me, an attempt to unnerve me with her military sternness. She failed, "No. Not really. I got teleported onto a spaceship, and I'm getting ready to fight a whole planet full of _Ord_. Why the fuck would I be happy about this?" My smart-aleck answer got Miss Frost to smirk and Mister Logan to snicker. Small victories.

"Solaris, watch your mouth," Miss Pryde admonished me in the most insincere tone I'd ever heard her use… and it was for my cursing. Not for my talking shit. So it was officially agreed that we all didn't like this lady. Cool.

Agent Brand could sense that this entire briefing hadn't done much to sway any of the X-Men to sympathize, so she went with flat-out laying her cards on the table, "The Earth can't mount an attack on a superior military force, and we can't defend against theirs," She said with a sigh, "I don't know why they've fixated on Rasputin. Luck of the draw, maybe. But I didn't kidnap you all for shits and giggles, or even for the time I'll buy. I did it because right now, I need superheroes."

There it was. This was a 'save the world' situation. Being that we (more like 'they', as in the X-Men) were in the business of saving Earth on a regular basis, there was next to no choice in the matter.

I looked around the room and saw that everyone was set on going forward. Of course they were. Saving the day was what these people did.

Satisfied that no one was taking her to task any further, she continued with the briefing, "Plan A is we land before they find us, find this missile, and disable it. Then we can figure out why-."

"Agent Brand!" One of the S.W.O.R.D. underlings cried out from his place at the controls, "They're here!"

Several fast-moving ships came at our ship from behind, and they came in firing torpedos, every one that hit the hull making us shake where we stood.

This seemed to catch her off-guard, "Already?" She said in shock before shaking it off and getting back to business, "Okay then. Time to the Breakworld?"

"14 minutes to clean orbit."

"Time until the ship is shredded?"

"A lot less."

"Get the Splinter up for thrust," She ordered before turning to us, "All of you, hold on tight," An expensive, speedy, high-tech escape vessel rocketed out of the front of the ship, making a break for the planet below. We weren't on it. We remained on the shredded excuse for a spacecraft that had been bombarded in the first place, "Prettiest ship in the fleet," She said with a grin as the enemy fire tapered off and began to focus on the swift-moving vessel that had broken off from us.

Dr. McCoy watched it go with a frown on his face, "Not to be picky, Agent Brand. But if this 'Splinter' is such a wonderful ship, shouldn't we be in it?"

Agent Brand shook her head and made her way for the door, "No way that thing lands undetected. The best those men can hope for is capture."

Wow. Sending out the tiny, faster ship had bought us a moment, but our ship was still burning and falling apart. Pretty callous outlook when it came to the S.W.O.R.D. guys manning the Splinter, though.

Mister Logan kept his eyes on her back as she moved past him for the exit, "You tell them that?" He asked.

Agent Brand didn't turn back. I had to at least give her credit. The woman didn't flinch, "They're soldiers. They bought us a few minutes, as ordered. Let's not waste them," She said, leading us out of the briefing room to a preparation bay, "Come with me. We'll get the rest of you suited up."

True enough, there were uniforms that looked a lot like the gear the X-Men wore waiting for us. I found myself amongst the others wearing the yellow and black. It was odd. Not the actual material. It felt a lot like the training squad suits that we wore. More like, what it meant felt odd.

Then again, I was probably looking too much into it. This was a desperate situation. It was the only reason those clothes were so much as touching my skin at this point.

I looked over at Hisako who looked like she was having thoughts like mine. Her uniform had sleeves a tad too big for her, because it had originally been for Miss Pryde. They'd gotten together a uniform for Mister Summers, but he already came dressed for the job, so it fell to me. It was a good thing I was just about the same size as him.

I had a uniform on that made me a dead ringer for the X-Men, an earwig in that could translate alien languages, and a breather behind my teeth to keep outside air purified.

"We rendezvous at the glowing red dot. The GPS maps should guide you, but if you lose 'em, you're looking for _Attur-Hei_."

Dr. McCoy said, testing the effectiveness of his translator, " _Palace of the Corpse?_ " The rest of us caught that as well.

Agent Brand checked her weapons while the rest of us who needed to finished getting dressed, "It's a tomb. Got dug up recently. Our source in the Breakworld says it might tie in to the Rasputin prophecy."

"You guys have a source?" Mister Summers asked.

"Not now," Agent Brand said, waving off any further explanations, "We get on the world, find out how Rasputin's supposed to be a threat, visibly nullify that threat, and take out the missile they've got pointed at the Earth. Questions can wait until we're on-world."

Mister Rasputin held to that request for five seconds, "Why haven't you killed me?" He blurted out, getting Miss Pryde to pull at his arm. It might have been a 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth' kind of situation "It's the simplest solution. I believe you are a fan of those."

Miss Pryde looked my way and gestured to Mister Rasputin. I shrugged apologetically. As I'd asked the question earlier, I _was_ kind of responsible for putting the thought in his head. I didn't think it would persist, though.

Agent Brand stared down the big Russian man, "I don't like prophecies. I don't like anyone telling me how my life's gonna play out," She said, "These Augurs have a pretty good track record, though. The Breakworlders believe you'll destroy them. They think the Earth is a threat, and are therefore a threat to the Earth," Finishing her maintenance on her handgun, she cocked it, "So we convince them the prophecy is wrong, or we make damn sure it comes true."

So either we blow up their planet, or they blow up ours. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. None of this seemed like it was going to end peacefully.

One of Brand's S.W.O.R.D underlings ran into the room, "Two bruteships are circling back. Less than a minute."

"Time to go, boys and girls," Agent Brand said, a bit more urgency in her body language than I'd seen up to that point, "We've got two vessels. Split up."

She headed one way into one escape pod with Dr. McCoy, Miss Frost and Mister Summers, while Mister Logan, Miss Pryde, Mister Rasputin, and Hisako got into the other. It was then I realized that I was going to be the odd man out.

So, like an idiot, I stood hesitating between stepping into one pod or the other. Of all the things to waste time hesitating about, "Wait. I-I-I, who do I-?"

Thank God for Dr. McCoy. The big blue beast of a man took mercy on me and yanked me into the escape pod with him, "Come. This way, my boy."

Not my finest moment, and I was supposed to be the leader of my squad of would-be X-Men back at school. If Hisako had seen that, then relayed it to the others later, I would have never lived it down. I just sat down, strapped in and kept my eyes down so no one looked at me. Not that they did. There were more important things to worry about than my little lapse of thought, but as a teenager, the entire universe of course revolved around me.

...And the entire universe wanted to kill me. Our escape pod shot out from the spaceship, and, well, I never actually got into that pressure machine we used during Field Day, but if I had, it probably would have felt similar.

I was stuck to my chair, unable to move my head or even my fingers. The pressure on my eyes was unbelievable. It was the nastiest head rush of my life, and every part of my body started to hurt. All I could do was shut my eyes and yell.

"Stop screaming, Mister Marcher. You're fine now."

All of a sudden, instead of being in a dark, tightly crammed escape shuttle, feeling like my body was about to pull apart and compact in on itself at the same time, we were in a Victorian-inspired parlor, sitting around a table with tea. I patted myself down. The pain was gone, "...What the hell?"

Everyone else just sat there drinking as though I were the one who was odd for questioning all of it. And then I remembered who I'd been in the shuttle with.

Miss Frost. A psychic. Conjuring up some mental fantasy world was just mental calisthenics to her. Bringing the rest of us in though?

I looked over to the side when I saw Dr. McCoy offer me a cup and saucer. I took it, even though I didn't want it. I wasn't really a tea kind of guy, "Thank you," I said, before looking around at everyone else. Hisako said I'd been acting way too cool about everything, but this was another level – having a tea party while we were hurtling through a planet's atmosphere, "Uh, is all of this okay?"

Miss Frost looked up from where she'd been lounging in a chair, "It's just a projection, Mister Marcher. No harm whatsoever. You can't feel anything regarding the outside world any longer can you?" She asked with a smirk.

Dr. McCoy let out a hum of agreement while taking a sip of his tea, "It's very thoughtful of you, Emma," He said once he'd swallowed.

The headmistress in white seemed very pleased with herself, which, considering the alternative of me nearly blacking out until whenever we landed, was justified, "Well, Good Lord, why should we endure all that centrifugal nonsense? Two lumps, dear," She said offhandedly to Mister Summers as he poured her drink, "We can all live in the now once we're on solid ground."

"I just want to make sure you're not overdoing it, honey," Mister Summers said before jerking his head over to me, "Also, Bellamy probably thinks he should know if he's about to die."

Yes. Kind of important, that.

"No one's going to die," Agent Brand said to me as if it was a certainty, "Proximity sensors will hit the jets miles before we land. The nav package is tiny, but it should drop us within a ten-click radius of the target. The first thing you learn on an op, kid, always have a back door."

Being around so many calm customers started to mellow me out as well. And the atmosphere was definitely helping, "Oh. Cool. I guess I'll just... roll with the punches and relax?"

"That would be for the best, darling," Miss Frost said, "There will be plenty of opportunities for you to lose all semblance of composure once we land, I'm sure."

I looked down at my cup of mentally conjured tea, hoping that it had the answers to my existence within its murky brown waves. It did look like the real deal.

I looked around at the battle-hardened heroes and intergalactic operatives. I had to measure up to that somehow, "...I was just supposed to play video games this weekend," I muttered into my drink before taking a sip.

Yep. Even hurtling through the dead of space inside of a psychic projection, tea was still gross.

* * *

 **Bellamy's in space, doing stuff with the actual X-Men to save the world. The kid is moving up, whether he's prepared or not. What can you do?**

 **So pull up a chair, and crack open your favorite drink. It's Kenchi's life gripe time.**

 **I must have shitty genes. Out of the blue, my dad blew both of his knees out back when he was 25. I'm 26, and my knees hurt** _ **all the time**_ **. It hasn't affected my speed, jumping, or kicking strength yet, but it's annoying, and I think it'll get worse. Yet another reason why running sucks for me.**

 **I need some cyborg legs, like an inverted Jax from Mortal Kombat. Or some bionic replacements for my bones and joints. Can we get those yet? Second-generation versions with most of the bugs worked out.**

 **I need a medical specialist and an engineer. I know statistically a few of you have to be. Get at me. Let's make this happen. Six-Million Dollar Kenchi. You can rebuild me. You have the technology.**

… **Then again, is it really possible to improve on perfection? Ponder that, audience.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	16. LEVIATHAN

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. I've got to stop binging shows. I got almost nothing done yesterday because I spent all day after getting off of work watching Marvel's Defenders on Netflix.

 **Chapter 16: LEVIATHAN**

* * *

Being safe and sound with feet on the ground did a lot for my state of mind. One thing about the Breakworld, was that it looked like crap. That might have just been first impressions talking, since we landed in some murky body of water and climbed out on some desolate rocky waste, but as I believed, first impressions meant a lot.

The air was gross and heavy compared to Earth's. Plus, the sunlight felt weird, "This place sucks. Where are the plants and animals?" I wondered out loud as we climbed up a small ledge, "What do these people eat?"

These were the questions to ask the first time you were on a foreign, hostile planet. The important things that needed to be known.

Agent Brand had no time for my precocious curiosity, "I'll tell you what, kid. Why don't you make sure you capture one alive so he can answer you?" She said as she walked past me. What an unpleasant woman. She received a glowing middle finger aimed at her from behind in return.

As we approached Mister Summers and Miss Frost, they stood at the front of us, the latter trying to figure out just where everyone else had gone, "I can't read a thing. If they made it, they're nowhere near."

Mister Summers let out a sigh of resignation. Of course things couldn't have been easy, though they hadn't ever been, "We'll give them some time," It was the only thing he really _could_ have done.

Dr. McCoy loomed over Agent Brand as she finished climbing the rest of the way up, "If anything's happened to them, Agent Brand-."

She interrupted before he could finish his perceived threat, "You'll what? Eat me?"

"In fact, I will," He said, much to everyone's surprise, "The new math, Agent. You're outnumbered, and not well liked. And I've recently acquired a taste for human flesh, I say with some embarrassment."

I couldn't figure out if it was more along the lines of awesome that he'd threatened to eat someone, or disturbing. Given that he was sticking up for us, I leaned more along the lines of awesome.

"Stow the bickering, guys," Mister Summers ordered, looking out past the expanse before us at our intended destination, "We've found our tomb."

Attur-Hei.

The tomb looked a lot like a pyramid that you would find on Earth, if only significantly wider, with a more forgiving incline. It looked like there were specific paths meant to lead to the top. Also, more importantly, it was teeming with armed Breakworld soldiers.

Everyone seemed to be prepared for a big fight. To be fair, going head-on against them was an idea that might have been effective given what all of us could do. But one of us was exhausted mentally (Miss Frost), and another was without their powers at the moment (Mister Summers). Sans powers, as the French would say.

It wasn't like I had any problems with a brawl, but there was a better way to do this.

Before Mister Summers could lead the way down and start putting boots to asses, I set my hand on his shoulder, "Wait," I said.

I half expected him to throw my hand off and order me to fall in line, "What is it, Bellamy?" It was a bit surprising that he stopped to consider anything that I had to say.

I pointed down at the soldiers we could see patrolling about the tomb site from a distance, "You realize I can take out most of them from here, right?" I asked, getting skeptical looks from more than just one person, "Hear me out. You guys get in close and give me a signal or something. I'll start picking guys off and leading them away."

Miss Frost looked at me like I was out of my mind, "That's preposter-."

"-Alright," Mister Summers, amazingly enough, agreed. I didn't see that coming. No one else did either.

Miss Frost didn't seem to agree with the idea of leaving me by my lonesome, "What? Do you mind running that by me again, Scott, dear?" There seemed to be an edge to her tone, one that spoke of not getting laid anytime soon if the wrong answer was given.

Mister Summers either called her bluff, or didn't care, "I said alright. If he says he can do it, I believe him," That meant a lot coming from the big man in charge of the X-Men, "You're sure you can handle this, aren't you?"

I did my best job at puffing my chest out, trying to be as convincing as a teenager in high school could be, "I would give you a demonstration, but the only thing worth shooting in this shithole are the guys I'm trying to convince you I can hit."

Logic always made for a sound argument, even if it didn't prove your point spot-on.

Agent Brand put her hands on her hips, regarding me with little more esteem than an extra body, "And what are you going to do when they realize where the shots are coming from?"

I gave her a sideways look to let her know her skepticism was not appreciated, "You let me worry about that," My way of saying that I had no idea, "Just get inside the temple, see what you need to see, then get out. Simple, no?"

Dr. McCoy interjected on my behalf. Yet another reason I thought he was the man, "Given that one of us is missing something very important right now," He said, referring to the apparent loss of Mister Summers' optic blasts, "I would say a head-on battle of this scale would be the last thing we would want to get involved in."

The man known as 'Cyclops' conceded to that, even though he had been onboard with letting me do my thing in the first place, "Give us ten minutes to get into a decent position. Emma will signal you, and then you can have at it," He said to me, before leaving me with a word of warning, "Just remember, if things get too bad, none of us can get to you."

I smiled at him grimly, "I'm not some punk that needs to be bailed out by anybody," I jerked my head in the direction of the tomb, "Go. I need to start spotting," And with that, I set out to find the location of every vulnerable target I could see before the shooting started.

As I started walking around, trying to memorize all of the enemy positions, I could hear comments from Agent Brand, "Are we really leaving this to the kid?"

Dr. McCoy stuck up for me, "That 'kid', Agent Brand, is trained by one of our best. Give him a chance," That big, blue S.O.B. was good people.

"They won't."

As if that was supposed to scare someone. I knew that already. I didn't need to hear it from her. If I messed up I'd either be killed, or captured and tortured. Been there, done that already. I didn't look forward to being put in a repeat situation.

So there I was, all alone on the side of a ridge overlooking a big creepy pyramid, guards teeming all over it. Plus two tanks. At least they looked like tanks. Maybe just a pair of armored vehicles. I had an idea that I would find out for certain soon enough.

I kept track of the X-Men's progression, making sure to take note of their position before I started shooting. The last thing I wanted was to bring all of the soldiers over in their direction. It would have defeated the purpose of my drawing the enemy's attention.

" _Alright, Mister Marcher, everyone is ready. Fire at will."_

'On it,' I kept a steady breath and upon the exhale took my first shot. It knocked my target off of his elevated position and sent him tumbling noisily down the cliff. If that didn't send everyone nearby calling for help in that direction, I didn't understand psychology, 'By the way, they'll be heading over to the far left of the temple from where we started,' I thought back to Miss Frost as the clamor started below.

" _Duly noted. And be careful. I would like for all of us to return home in one piece."_

'You and me both,' I thought, taking another opportunistic shot at a person that might have been able to spot the X-Men as they snuck toward the tomb.

I took another pair of shots that put down a guy carrying some kind of heavy weapon and someone very close to seeing where I was. Every few shots, I had to change positions to make sure some random grunt didn't spot me and send all of the bad guys sprinting my way.

Compared to the kind of scenarios Miss Pryde had us run in the Danger Room when I started learning how to snipe, this was easy. Truth be told, thought it was going to be academic that I'd be caught. In reality, Miss Pryde and the inherent adaptability of the Danger Room made it so that enemies would eventually catch on and swarm on me, no matter how well I was supposedly doing.

They set up an expedition force to head up to the cliffs to locate me. They wound up going in the complete wrong direction. I had to hold back my laughter and refrain from shooting at the sitting ducks so I didn't give away my actual position. Not shooting at them actually made them think that they had been going in the right direction and that I had fled to keep from being caught.

That left the dregs behind to protect the place. About ten more soldiers, plus one vehicle. The vanguard had taken the other. I rubbed my hands together like an evil mastermind and slid down the side of the ledge to lower myself closer to their level. I had to handle this quickly.

Shooting light was so great. You didn't have to account for distance, or the time it would take for the shot to reach the target, so I didn't have to lead anything that moved. I just had to make sure my crosshairs were on, so to speak.

On my approach, right out of their line of sight I started to sprint. As I got closer, I started mentally marking the order I would take them all out in. That was when I began to fire. In my head, I counted out each successful shot that dropped someone. It took three before the lot of them noticed. By the time they figured out the direction I was coming in, five were down.

They finally started shooting back, only they panic-fired, and no one tried to find any cover. Three more went down. That left one who tried scrambling for the armored vehicle. I got a headshot on him right as he got on top of it to try and get inside.

 ***WHUMP!***

The sound he made as he fell off and dropped to the dirt was satisfying. So was the silence of a job well done. I blew at nonexistent smoke that would have been wafting from my fists. And that was when I realized something.

The last guy had _opened_ the armored vehicle... and there was no one around to stop me. Spending the better part of my life playing Grand Theft Auto had prepared me for this moment. What kind of superhero-in-training would I be if I didn't try to steal it?

...Don't ask the question of why a hero would take to stealing a vehicle. Call it 'commandeering' if it makes you feel better.

I hopped in the front seat and noted that it had a push-button start, "Ooh!" I said as the machine hummed to life. It was quiet, I had known that from a distance, but even inside it was still easy on the ears, "And it's just like an Earth ride!"

It was just a transport, so there were no weapons, but that little baby had some horsepower to it... or whatever Breakworld used to describe the power of a car. I drove it away from the makeshift camp right up to the entrance of the pyramid where there were more guard that were down for the count. I hadn't done that, so I figured everyone else had made it inside well enough.

I jumped out, leaving the thing running in case we needed a quick getaway, and jogged inside to see if there was more I could do in the meantime.

When I caught up, the lot of them were just standing around and staring ahead. When I got to where they were, I got to see up-close just what had them so enraptured.

"Oh shit," I let slip under my breath.

On the wall, there was a giant mural of a metalled up Colossus, destroying the Breakworld with his bare hands. It looked like he had ripped the core out of the planet. Either that, or he was yanking the sun over across the galaxy for some face time with the fine denizens of this world.

The thing that really made it freaky was that it wasn't just a painting of a prophecy. It was etched in stone.

After I'd said something, everyone turned around with a start, finally noticing that I was there, "Solaris," Mister Summers said, "The enemy?"

I snapped out of my hyper focus on the wall, just like that, "Oh. On a wild goose chase somewhere that-a-way," I said, pointing in a direction away from here. I then gave him a smile that was all teeth and malice, "Everyone that didn't go ain't gonna be getting up for a good, long while."

"You handled it without getting a scratch?" Miss Frost asked, looking me over... and probably reading my mind to get my recollection of events. It took a moment, but when she was done she seemed pleasantly surprised, "Hm. Excellent work, Mister Marcher."

A compliment, from the lady that ran the gambit from thinking I was an idiot to being able to tolerate me for my apparent talent? I'd take it! "I stole their armored car thing too. I think they've got a few rides at the camp we passed," I said, giving that information out, just in case.

Dr. McCoy was busy climbing all over the mural, trying to take trace bits of it for testing. Even so, he still had the time for one-upmanship, "I hate to say I told you so, Agent Brand," He began to lead on before being cut off.

"-No you don't," She said back dryly. Yet, she didn't argue any counterpoints, which was as close to a 'well done' as I was going to get from her, "Let's finish analyzing this thing."

At that moment, both Mister Logan and Hisako flew in to the chamber on beat up, flying bikes. I wanted one, "Sorry we're late," The man with the claws in his fists said, "...Whose tank is outside?"

I raised my hand, "It's more like an armored car, really. No weapons or treads."

Mister Logan grunted in response, looking over us to take a head count, "Where are Pete and Kitty?"

I pointed back to the tank, "They haven't gotten here yet, but they're somewhere. The radio in that thing keeps going on about the metal man."

"What happened to you lot?" Miss Frost asked.

Mister Logan's lips curled in distaste. Clearly, whatever had gone down left him quite upset, which wasn't exactly hard to do, "Agent Brand's _brilliant_ plan went south. Our pretend burning wreckage stopped pretending," How vague, and yet it still sounded painful, "We get through this, I'm gonna pop a claw through her eye. You guys cool with that?"

Miss Frost didn't give it a second thought, "Absolutely."

Mister Summers started out a bit more diplomatic, "Logan, we don't just..." It lasted for all of two seconds, "Nah, go for it."

By now, Mister Logan had caught sight of the mural on the wall and let out a whistle, "Well this doesn't leave a whole lotta room for doubt, does it? How's it work? Is that the sun?"

Hisako tilted her head to give a little bit of a think as she speculated over what it was we were supposed to cause, "So, what? Supernova? Orbital shift?"

Dr. McCoy gave a small round of applause for her theory, "Very likely, Miss Ichiki. High marks for the stowaway student."

Logan put a hand on her shoulder with a heavy clap, "Can't call her a student anymore. _Armor_ here is our new teammate."

Hisako seemed to be nervous at a call like that being made with no one else's input, especially when Miss Frost and Mister Summers just stared back at her, "I mean... that is, Logan said-."

Miss Frost waved off her attempts to be modest, "Oh, it's lovely. God knows the team's going to need some new blood soon."

"Did he teach you the handshake?" Mister Summers joked.

They were just going to go with it? My eyes went wide, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I just lingered back, mouth shut. It was just some honorary thing, seeing as how she had been stuck with him by herself, and they'd probably had to kick some ass to get those bikes.

Really, it was cool that I didn't get the same accolades. A pat on the head, and a 'good boy, Bellamy' was enough.

...

...No it wasn't. My ego demanded parity. I wanted to be a goddamn X-Man.

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever your handshake is, it's not as good as a 'too sweet'," That she still wouldn't do.

Logan walked over and smirked right at me. He knew I was miffed. He knew the whole 'teammate' thing was messing with me, "Don't be jealous now, Glowstick."

The thought went through my head to kick him in the nuts. Those weren't coated in Adamantium, and he'd heal from it quicker than anyone else would.

I worked my jaw for a bit, half mouthing every curse I wanted to give him, "You know what? I'm just gonna take all of this rage that's building right now, put it in a ball, and stick it right here," I smacked my fist against my belly, "And keep it there for the next poor bastard that tries to get in my way. So thank you."

The cream rose to the top. You couldn't hold back raw talent. All that good stuff. I was the man. I knew I was the man. As long as I didn't end up scattered across Breakworld in itty-bitty pieces by the end of this ordeal, everyone else would know it too.

"So. I guess you had a good day," I struggled to not be a bitter ass. Hisako was still my friend and teammate... unless being made an X-Man in the field took her off of the Paladins. That would have sucked.

She turned to me with the dullest expression she'd given since we were beamed up onto S.W.O.R.D.'s ship, "I saw Wolverine with all of his skin burned off."

How exactly was I supposed to react to that? "...Cool," We fell into a weird silence for a moment. But only for a moment, "...Does this mean you outrank me now?"

She threw her hands up in the air. No fair. I was the one who should have been annoyed, "Oh my God, I knew this was coming!"

"That makes one of us."

"You still run the Paladins!"

"Are you _off_ the Paladins?"

"I-!" She made to snap back at me until she seriously considered my question. It calmed her down, "I'd better not be. I'd miss you idiots. And yes, that includes you. Moron," She added before I could mention it for her.

I grinned at her and chuckled, "I knew I'd grow on you."

"Like a fungus," Hisako said with a scoff. We just turned and kept looking at the mural. I felt a shift of movement and saw her holding up the 'too sweet', "I'm glad we're both still alive."

There was a first time for everything. I returned the gesture. I didn't admit it out loud, but I was happy that both of us were too, "Of course we're still alive. We're the Paladins. It's us against the world. And I never thought I'd mean that literally."

Dr. McCoy dropped from the wall with a small bag containing bits of the mural, "I'm afraid that without a lab, I can't tell much about this carving."

Agent Brand held a device that produced a hologram of alien characters turning into a language we could recognize, "The symbols are older than anything in our data banks. Gonna be a while before we get specifics. I say we split up."

Dr. McCoy's expression clearly brightened, "At least we agree on something."

Agent Brand put away her device and addressed him directly, "You're coming with me."

His happier outlook on life quickly vanished, "And so ends that era," Who could blame him? We'd all been dealing with this hardcase of a woman since we'd left home.

Agent Brand gave her reason for needing the resident egghead of our little crew, "I need to get a look at the weapon they've got pointed at the Earth. There's a base directly under its orbit, a hundred miles east. You're science division, so you come with."

Mister Logan cut in with his own aims, "I wanna find Pete and Kitty. I'll take the kid," He noticed me perk up and took great pleasure in bursting my bubble, "...The quieter kid."

And here I thought we were cool with each other.

Mister Summers apparently wanted a piece of the big boss of the Breakworld, "I'm interested in this Kruun," It definitely sounded like he was spoiling for a fight.

Agent Brand shook her head, green hair swishing to the side, "You're not up to facing him. I've got men in the field. I think you and Frost should rendezvous with them and wait for word."

Our glorious leader didn't like the sound of that, "Oh, is that what you think?" He said, an edge to his tone. Being anywhere but on the frontlines, in the action made him feel uncomfortable. To be fair, I did too..

Normally, conflict resolution wasn't Brand's strong suit, but Dr. McCoy's words from earlier must have stuck with her. She had basically no leg to stand on if we all went off on her, "No offense, but you're powerless right now, and she's more unstable than normal. I wasn't counting on either of those things when I brought you here," She finished under her breath.

Mister Logan whispered none too subtly, "Want me to pop that claw?"

"No, the lady has a point," Mister Summers conceded before pointing at me and gesturing to himself and Miss Frost, "Bellamy, you're with us," Before anyone could say anything against it, he turned to Agent Brand, "You just said we didn't have any firepower. If he doesn't count as firepower at this point, I have no idea what you were hoping for from us."

"Besides, the poor boy has to go with someone," Miss Frost added, "Look at him. He's like a puppy staring at all of the families through a pet store window."

It was jarring just how accurate that assessment was. So much so, I didn't have the strength to fight it and say anything back. I was a full head taller than her, yet felt very low. I walked past the two of them. More like through them, "Just... get in the armored car when you figure out where we're going."

Before I could leave and head back for my ride, Mister Summers put a hand on my shoulder to stop me, "Quick question. How good are you at flying?"

I turned halfway around and raised an eyebrow, "I'd have won the Field Day event if David couldn't absorb Nightcrawler's pilot mojo from sitting next to him," And I'd gotten better since then. A few times, Miss Pryde had even let me mess around in the Blackbird for more live practice, "Why?"

XxX

The answer to that question was simple: because we all couldn't fit in one Breakworld flight craft.

Mister Summers and Miss Frost got into one, leaving me to fly the other one alone. I had never flown alone. To make things scarier, we were on a hostile planet, in case anyone had forgotten. So I wasn't just flying, I was also playing fighter pilot.

Even as quickly as we'd moved out, of course it would have stood to reason that the soldiers camped near the tomb would have eventually noticed that we'd dropped all of the guys they left behind, stolen a bunch of their vehicles, and sabotaged the rest. So it only stood to reason that they would send planes to shoot down the ones that we'd taken. You know what that meant? Dogfights. Plenty of dogfights.

As playing Grand Theft Auto for the better part of a decade had prepared me for hijacking an armored car, years of playing Ace Combat, as well as actually getting real flight training got me prepared to shoot down alien pilots in the skies of the Breakworld.

As a plane tried to line itself up with Mister Summers' to try and shoot it down, I slipped in behind and did the deed first. Boss-man using himself as bait made it easy.

They sent a squadron after us, but they hadn't lasted very long after the engagement started. There was one sovereign ruler of Breakworld, so it wasn't like their pilots got a lot of practice on-world fighting other enemy pilots. I had a feeling any 'war games' that troops took part in were to the death.

It was the only way that I could explain how I was handling them so well. Even when I wasn't picking up the scraps from Mister Summers, I still shot down a few in my own right. But it was nothing compared to the other plane containing X-Men

Mister Summers was good. Really good. The best pilot I'd ever seen. Granted, I had only seen a few better than me, but they had all been X-Men. Still, he was leagues above any of them. I'm pretty sure he didn't even need Miss Frost to co-pilot and watch his back. I'm pretty sure he didn't need _me_ to pick up the scraps and take out any planes that he couldn't get rid of himself.

Eventually, we came across a flaming wreck in the woods. The fact that they had an intact forest was amazing to me. I had to apologize for my brazen assumption that I was on a crapsack planet.

" _Bellamy, look alive,"_ I felt Mister Summers say to me telepathically, with help of course from Miss Frost, _"If that's the last of the splinter ship, the troops can't have gone far. We'll have to circle until we see something or get a signal."_

'Gotcha,' I thought back, moving out of the formation I had been keeping outside of combat with their plane, 'Splitting off to start searching.'

What proceeded was nearly an hour of boredom. All trees looked the same when you were over a thousand feet in the air. Yes, my eyesight was good, but it wasn't that good. Thankfully there were instruments in the plane that let me get a better look at what was in closer to the ground. Breakworld jets really were a lot like jets on Earth. I could locate what I was looking for, I just needed a sign.

My sign came in the form of a goddamn flying purple dragon that was a dead ringer for the one my teacher kept back at the Institute. It was a dead ringer because it was the very same, "Lockheed? What the fuck are you doing here?" I said to myself when the weapons locked on to the would-be bogey. I did _not_ fire a missile at my teacher's pet dragon, thank you. Instead, I found a place to put the plane down to investigate, "If this is a trap... it's a really good trap," I said as I hopped out of the cockpit and started heading that way.

Eventually, I saw Lockheed land on a tree branch in the woods and look down at me. When he realized who it was, for the first time ever, he seemed happy to see me. The growls that came out of his mouth as he flew down and landed on my shoulder seemed pleased, at least.

The feeling was mutual, especially because he then led me to the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers that had been on the decoy escape vessel. We came across all of them taking up hiding spots for a would-be ambush.

I almost started laughing in relief. There were more of them than I had expected to see. What a stroke of fortune, "Oh man, I thought all of you guys were toast. I'm so happy to see you," I said once I was close enough.

The first soldier, the one I guessed was in charge of who was left, lowered his weapon and visibly relaxed his body, "Same here. You're that kid. The one with the X-Men, right? They're still kicking, aren't they?"

And then some. Of course, that was before we had split up again, so anything could have happened, "Last time I checked, we were all alive. Your boss too. Have you guys been hanging around here the whole time?" I asked, looking around at the amassed fighting force. They all seemed tired, "So is this place teeming with soldiers or anything?" I needed to know in case I had to be ready to shoot a bitch.

An odd alien soldier with a red dragon-like head answered, "Honessstly, we haven't sssseen any patrols ssssince we crashed. At leassst not on the ground," He hissed quietly.

I scratched at my head and continued to look around, "That makes sense of one thing at least. There were a lot of planes swarming around near the crash site. We had a bunch of dogfights on the way over here. The skies are clear now."

Everyone else reacted positively to that bit of news, "Outstanding. Now what?"

A great question. One that I hopefully had a satisfactory answer to, "Now I've got to get a signal to Cyclops and Emma Frost. They're out looking for you too," I said, looking up through the canopy of the forest with a frown, "I have no idea how to send something without letting everyone see it. Bad guys included."

All of the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers winced, clearly not liking the sound of that. I couldn't blame them. They weren't as well equipped and they would be outnumbered if another battle started. I didn't necessarily want to fight a ton of people either, "Well that's no good."

Agreed. However, it wasn't like we were powerless, or stuck on the ground, "Fuck it. Do you want me to just hop back in the plane and circle tight around here? I'm sure they'll come back, see me, and get in touch eventually," I wasn't much for military strategy. I just wanted to help, "If anything pops off while I'm up there, well, just get your distance, because that thing has weapons."

The guy in charge seemed to have his shit together when it came to handling things in the field, but making calls beyond that seemed to vex him, "It would be nice to have some air superiority," He seemed to be debating the decision, "...No. Stay down here. You've got some firepower in those hands. We might need that more than you up in a plane you're still learning how to pilot."

Fair enough. Either way, I could deal with it. And I had remembered that I had a second way to communicate with Mister Summers and Miss Frost, as long as they were somewhere close. He said they would circle the area, so maybe it had a chance of working.

'Hey, Miss Frost, can you hear me?' I started thinking out loud, much in the same way I would have tried to contact Ruth on my squad, 'It's Bellamy. I've got the S.W.O.R.D. guys here. It looks like most of 'em are in one piece. They seem tired though.'

I waited patiently for a response, even though it seemed to take forever to get. Eventually though, after close to two minutes, right before I gave up, I got an answer, _"That's wonderful, dear. We're on the way to you now. And don't worry about what happens next. Everything is fine."_

If that wasn't the most ominous thing I had heard all day, I hadn't been paying attention to what had been going on around me.

Heavy thuds on the ground and rustling in the trees started to get all of our attention. The soldiers around me started holding onto their guns tighter, their heads whipping around to try and figure out what was coming.

I looked up and saw the cause of all of the trouble, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

It was a giant, metal insect with thin, sharp metal legs. It reminded me of the big metal spider from Wild, Wild West, only somehow scarier. And yet, I didn't start cutting it down at the legs. Mostly because I remembered what I'd been told a minute earlier about not freaking out over whatever happened next.

Like I said, the lead S.W.O.R.D. soldier only felt certain operating in the field, "Stay low! If they engage, return fire and fall back in Alpha-Kree Formation! Maybe it'll miss us."

The dragon-headed guy was less certain of that fact, "No, it won't."

Either way, if there was going to be another fight, I figured there wasn't anyone around that was going to cover my ass. More like I would be expected to cover theirs, seeing as how I was one and they were many. With that in mind, I marched on out to deal with whatever this thing was.

Its thorax lowered to the ground and opened up. It was then that I bore witness to a badly beaten up Mister Summers and Miss Frost emerging from inside of it.

I wasn't even surprised. Why else wouldn't something like that have tried to kill us all on-sight, "I have a lot of questions," I said, trying to play it cool, "What happened to you? Weren't you guys in a plane? Where did this thing come from?"

Out of the two of them, Miss Frost looked particularly beaten up, which was weird since she could turn to solid diamond to protect herself, "To answer all of your questions in order..." They moved out of the way and Danger stepped out of the same doorway.

She was right. That did answer all my questions, all at once even. But on the same end, it opened up so many more; namely-, "Why am I not shooting her right now?"

You know, because she tried to kill me three times. Oh, and because she actually did kill two students back at the Institute. Granted, it was kind of indirectly, but in the same vein it was exactly what she'd wanted.

"We've come to an understanding," Mister Summers said, apparently okay with whatever turn of events that had occurred out of my line of sight, "And now we have transport for all of you."

"Okay, great," I said, not knowing what exactly we were going to do with our newfound mobility for the many. Because it didn't sound like he meant it was for all of us, "...Wait. Transport for them? What about us?"

XxX

I had to leave my sweet, sweet jet behind for the S.W.O.R.D troops to use, because Dr. McCoy had done one better and found a full-on space transport for us to use. There was a moon base in orbit around the planet that apparently housed the weapon that would destroy our planet. That was what the brains of our operation had determined, so that was what we needed to check out.

Our blue, furry main man met up with us and picked us all up. By all of us, not just me, Mister Summers, and Miss Frost, but everyone else too. Hisako, Mister Logan, Mister Rasputin, and Miss Pryde.

I was ecstatic to see my squad advisor again. She seemed much better off than she had back when we'd first been taken away from the Institute. I brought it up once I had the chance.

"Am I alright?" Miss Pryde seemed confused that I was saying such a thing to her instead of the other way around, "You're my student. Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

By now, I figured we were far past the point where any schooltime authority she had over me held sway here, "Hey, if you were going to, it should have been about two days ago," I said, talking to her like a regular person instead of my teacher, "I've just been trying to roll with the punches since we got here. Before we landed, you were the one that looked like you'd just heard that God was dead."

Miss Pryde frowned at my poignant description of her temperament while we'd been adjusting to getting taken by S.W.O.R.D., "It wasn't that bad," She said. I did my best impression of an Easter Island head staring back at her, "...Oh, wow. Was it really that bad?"

I nodded. While we may have been past it, I couldn't just pretend like it hadn't happened at all, "There was a reason me and Hisako didn't bother huddling around you this whole time. But you seem better now, and I'm glad. You don't have to tell me about whatever got into you."

Miss Pryde's eyes went wide for a split-second before she looked away, "That's... a particularly surgical choice of phrasing, Bellamy," She said, her face turning red.

I didn't know what the big deal was. I hadn't said anything strange, "Why? I don't know what that-," She took a step back against Mister Rasputin's chest, who also seemed a tad flustered. It was then that my train of thought pulled into the appropriate station, "Oh! Well, good for you two."

Nothing else I could say, or that I needed to say. Mister Rasputin had taken her to pound town... again. It had happened once before to my knowledge, right after he showed up at the Institute. Something about students catching Miss Pryde running upstairs naked after phasing through the floor. I had not been fortunate enough to be present for that.

Hey, if she could fit the time to get laid in between everything on Breakworld trying to murder us, more power to her. I wished I could figure out how to swing such a thing. We should all be so lucky to have that method of stress relief available.

Mister Summers, ever the consummate leader, needing to have his i's dotted and t's crossed, spent the flight time rifling through the intelligence that S.W.O.R.D. had collected on the Breakworld, "Brand, your files don't show any mention of the name, Aghanne."

Apparently, Miss Pryde and Mister Rasputin had been taken in by some splinter group against the current regime. Their leader was a woman who desired peace and thought Colossus could be the one to bring it. So we didn't have the entire Breakworld trying to cut our heads off.

Agent Brand frowned as Mister Summers kept checking the info, "Well, no, of course. If what Rasputin says about her is true, she'll have been expunged from the records," She said, "I'm amazed she's even alive at all."

"We'll we need to talk to her if we're going to figure this whole thing out," Mister Summers asserted, "If her interpretation of the prophecy is true, if Peter is somehow involved in _saving_ this race..."

Then we could actually get through this without destroying the whole goddamn planet in order to protect ours. I was down for some hero shit.

"We're coming up on the moon," Dr. McCoy announced to the rest of us, "Hmm. Disturbing lack of security."

We trusted his ability to pilot, so the rest of us were focused on the fact that we could possibly get out of this without waging a war against a whole planet. Mister Logan wasn't necessarily onboard with that approach, "Saving this place? I don't know. The kid and I have been seeing this place at ground level. I kinda like the version where Pete blows it up."

The next time Dr. McCoy spoke, he wasn't just informing us of our status. He clearly needed our full attention, "Okay, people. We have more bad news."

Mister Rasputin moved to the front to look out over his shoulder, "What is it? We expected the moon to be fortified. You don't think we can land?"

"It's not quite that. It's..." Dr. McCoy trailed off before chuckling to himself. But it wasn't a laugh that someone gave when they were involved in something funny, "You know, I thought I'd have a lot more fun if I ever got to say this for real – That's no moon."

The Star Wars reference was apt, seeing as how we were flying to a veritable Death Star. A Death Star where instead of a planet-smashing super-laser, there was a gigantic missile loaded in the middle of it.

I had to take a second look. People actually made things like this? It was real? "They built this thing to fire _one_ missile?" I asked.

"It's ten miles long," Mister Summers observed, which made it an even scarier thought that it was probably going to be fired at the Earth.

"Well, I didn't bring you here for nothing," Agent Brand said, but it was clear that even she hadn't expected to have to deal with a weapon of that consequence.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck, "This is..." For once, I didn't have the words to express how I felt, "How are we supposed to stop that thing?" I doubted there was an exhaust port the size of a womp rat for us to fire a photon torpedo into to take the whole thing out.

My question would have gone unanswered anyway, but the klaxon of impending doom alerted us to incoming ships pouring off of the space station.

Dr. McCoy grit his teeth, a bit of a true-blue growl rumbling from his throat, "We outrun these warships never."

Mister Logan gripped the back of Dr. McCoy's seat so tightly, I thought his claws were going to pop out, "So we got a plan here? I don't wanna play 'Man Who Fell to Earth' again."

Something about this attack didn't sit well with me. More than just the fact that we were going to be blown into the dark vacuum of space, "Wait. We're really close. Why'd they wait so long to attack? This thing isn't exactly stealthy. They had to have seen us coming before now."

Mister Summers' face was stony, until a flash of realization crossed it. Then he was all business again, "There's a repair craft in the back. Fits one. You go, I stay," He said, "Emma, help me."

"I, uh..." It was a vague enough request to leave Miss Frost stunned for a moment, but after making direct eye contact with him, she caught on, _"Right. I'm linking you all psychically. There's surveillance on the ship. Try to keep talking like normal,"_ She instructed to the lot of us, "Yes, he's right. It's best."

" _Sure. Talking is one of the things I'm really good at,"_ Seeing as how this was _my_ move that I had us do with Blindfold all the time, I'd better have been good at double communication, "So your whole plan is to go out there and get popped by the space goons? Then what? You want _me_ to take over or something?"

I thought I saw a look of acknowledgment from Mister Summers at how well I handled both the mental and verbal conversation simultaneously, "They'll come after me. It'll buy you time, and if anything happens, I'm the most..." He gave a quick pause to convey how difficult it was for him to say what was next. It was just a cover to detail the situation, _"We need to get closer to Kruun. That won't happen unless he thinks we're helpless. So I'll take the repair ship and get myself captured,"_ "...I'm the one with no powers."

"They're gaining..." Dr. McCoy didn't even have to try and double speak, under the guise of being focused on outrunning the enemy, _"There's a good chance they'll kill you, boss."_

"You're supposed to be the leader," Agent Brand argued without thinking to us, to buy time for Mister Summers.

"That's why I'm acting like one," Mister Summers said as he thought to us, _"They brought Peter back to life. They'll do the same with me if they think I have information they need,"_ It made sense, "The most important thing is to keep Kruun from finding out about our ace in the hole."

" _Well they've got a big stinking gun. So why couldn't_ we _have a big stinking gun? They're scared of us already, right?"_ I thought out loud to the group as I spoke, "Are you serious? I thought you said that was the kind of thing we can't just go around using."

Mister Summers liked my idea, _"A secret weapon? That would work."_

Dr. McCoy chimed in, _"We need a name. Something imposing and ominous."_

"Leviathan?" Emma tested out loud.

" _Oh, honey, that's irresistible! Leviathan,"_ Mister Summers took it and ran with it, "It's our best hope now. The rest of you keep low until Leviathan shows up. Pete, it's too dangerous for you to make contact with Aghanne. Emma will go instead," He continued giving us instructions, _"Krunn'll work me over for a while, trying to get that out of me. The rest of you get to work. Emma, I'll need schematics of the prison. Logan and Hisako, get yourselves captured in a few hours so we've got a force inside."_

"I object!" Miss Pryde basically stage yelled out loud at the entire party.

It was so off-kilter and stilted, it caught us all off-guard, even Mister Summers, "Kitty?" _"What?"_

None of us could believe how bad it was.

Miss Frost: _"Bugger me, was that acting?"_

Mister Rasputin: _"Is not courtroom drama, Katya."_

She turned red, but kept her embarrassment in her head, "To... all of this! You're not just gonna throw your life away after... all of this," She said out loud. In her head, she sounded just as humiliated, _"Shut up! I'm not good at having two conversations at once, and I actually_ do _hate Scott's plan!"_

I couldn't help myself, _"...You mean you object to it,"_ I thought, focusing on Miss Pryde.

I'm a complete asshole.

" _Shut up, Bellamy!"_ She snapped back at me in her mind. Truthfully, if she hadn't have done that, I would have just let it die. But since she didn't, I had to rub her face in it more.

You know... like a complete asshole. Which I was. Have we established that?

"If it matters, I'm not really a fan either. Of Cyclops being our decoy, or of calling _that_ thing in to finish up in Breakworld," I said, flexing my conversational gymnastics, _"I really don't get why this is so hard. See?"_ "But then again, nobody listens to me."

I really was trying to be a better person like I promised. It was hard. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had Hisako around to check me. As was tradition, _"Your mouth has no filter. You don't have to think to talk. Most intelligent people actually do,"_ It was literally the only contribution she gave to the mental or verbal string of comments.

Mister Logan smirked, "Guess Emma's running the show. That'll be interesting," His voice hitched once or twice, _"Fucking Glowstick. I'm gonna crack up. I'm cracking up."_

" _Say something cynical,"_ Agent Brand advised, giving him the opening to do so,"Excuse me, I'm the one who's gonna be-."

" _Right. Right,"_ Mister Logan thought as he cut her off out loud, "Don't even dream it. Good luck, Summers," _"End this already before I lose it."_

Mister Summers started walking away from us and gave his final marching orders, _"Agent Brand. You and Hank work that prophecy out. Peter, go bring Aghanne into the fold if you can. Be outside the prison in a few hours. Bring everyone."_ He opened the door to the hold of the ship and stopped, "Stay away from Kruun, stay away from the prison, even if they take me alive," _"Logan's right. I'd better go before Kitty tries to act again,"_ "Emma."

"Darling?" The worried tone of her voice sounded legit. Her thoughts reflected that, _"Scott, if Kruun has you at his mercy-."_

" _Don't worry, my love. 'Leviathan' will save me,"_ Mister Summers didn't even turn back around,"They're all yours."

With that, he left for the back of the ship and the repair vessel that would serve as the start of his little plot/scheme. We weren't talking about it out loud for some reason, but even so, I felt the need to project a thought to everyone else around me, if only to lighten the mood.

" _Goddamn it, that was awesome! If this works, I'm stealing the shit out of this when we get home!"_

I just had to show my appreciation for such good use of psychic misdirection. That was outstanding.

With that, we watched Mister Summers head out in the repair craft. For a dinky little staff service thing, he made it move. He went straight through the enemy formation without taking a shot. He actually got a ship or two to destroy another of their own with friendly fire.

They all got angry and went at him, swarming his way. He never turned off, heading straight away from us as he weaved through the shots.

"What have we done?" Miss Pryde whispered, her eyes stuck on the sight of Mister Summers taking all of the heat off of us and onto himself.

Dr. McCoy turned our ship back around to Breakworld and left Mister Summers to do his thing, "Give 'em hell, boss."

The murderous concentration of fire was too much for him to fend off for long. One hit turned to two, turned to more. A repair craft wasn't meant to withstand any kind of barrage. There was absolutely no armor on it. The enemy pilots blew it wide open.

One could only hope his body survived the explosion, because he wouldn't survive space.

Miss Frost must have stayed connected in order to feel him out until the end, "He's going," She muttered to herself, "...And so are we. Henry?"

"Already on the way back to Breakworld," Dr. McCoy confirmed for her, "Hold on, people."

XxX

I drummed my fingers impatiently off of the side of a wall I leaned against as what was left of our ragtag group of mutants and extraterrestrial agents/soldiers gathered together at the bridge of Danger's freaky giant insect transport.

There wasn't anything I could really do. Miss Pryde and Mister Rasputin were off rallying the local resistance movement. Mister Logan and Hisako were getting themselves caught so they could be Mister Summers' inside team when it was time to storm the palace.

It made sense for her to be there, really. He could basically regenerate any injuries that befell him, and she could protect herself from almost anything. That made them the most durable and prepared for that kind of fight. I just wasn't used to it. I didn't like it. I wasn't used to being relegated to the roles I found myself in. For me, it was one of those 'before you can lead, you have to learn how to follow' situations. It was an exercise in patience.

Meanwhile, it seemed like everyone else had accomplished their objectives.

Miss Frost sat in a chair behind Danger's driver's seat, a hand held to her temple, "Sorry, my head is stuffed with building plans. What's not the sun?" She asked Dr. McCoy.

Our furry, blue friend seemed to be taken aback by whatever he'd found out, "The prophecy. It talks about pulling the light from the Breakworld, through the 'Temple of Power'."

Agent Brand took over the explanation, "Kruun's thronehouse sits on a reactor. It powers everything, literally by pulling energy from the planet's core."

"It's not a prophecy though, it's a plan," Dr. McCoy jumped back in, "The inscription we found at the tomb is absurdly specific. It's practically an instruction manual on destroying the Breakworld."

Miss Frost's brows furrowed as she tried to take note of this and what she was trying to do psychically, "And who do you think would want to-?" She stopped when she got a ping of what she had been looking for, "Hold on, I found Scott. Are we close?"

"We'll be at the prison in thirty seconds," Danger replied, the calm countenance of an analytical machine. To that end, I pushed myself off of the wall and loosened myself up. Even more fighting was ahead.

"God, he's in so much pain," Miss Frost lamented. Having been subjected to torture before, I could only imagine how bad it was when it was of the high-tech alien variety.

It was only fair play that in exchange for that, Mister Summers got to unleash an optic blast that tore a gaping hole in the ceiling of the fortress. Just in case anyone forgot that he actually had the raw power in addition to the tactical know-how to lead the X-Men.

When we hit the fortress, the place was madness. Guards were scrambling all over the place, caught between trying to get to wherever Mister Summers was, to trying to get their hands on Mister Logan and Hisako – both of whom had gotten loose within the building, and dealing with us; a handful of mutants and some well-armed and pissed off other-worldly soldiers.

Also worth mentioning, Mister Rasputin and Miss Pryde arrived and jumped in with the leader of the Breakworld resistance. The more the merrier.

We caught them on our way in and mashed our way past. Sometimes we caught pockets of enemies facing the entirely wrong way. To say they got rolled over was an understatement. When we caught up with Mister Logan and Hisako, they just folded into the rest of our group and joined us in the smack down.

"Miss me?" I said, running up to her side as I kept my eyes ahead, shooting anything with greenish skin and Breakworld metal armor, "I mean, I know it's only been like three hours, but still-."

"Getting captured sucks," Hisako said, taking the opportunity that came with my ranged shooting to armor down before she exhausted herself, "Especially when you're throwing the fight. Do you know how hard it is to lose on purpose?"

I focused on taking a few distance shots, sticking close to protect her so she didn't have to use her powers unnecessarily. Losing to the people on this planet, even intentionally, probably hurt, so she was likely feeling it, "No, because I'm a winner. And winners like Bellamy Marcher lay down for absolutely no one," I paused for a moment to add something else, "...Unless you're a lady. Then I might lie down for you."

I could feel Hisako roll her eyes next to me. If I weren't shooting bad guys left, right, and center, she probably would have punched me in the arm, "We're fighting an army here, and you're making awful jokes."

"It was more of a double meaning kind of thing, but I catch your drift," I said, sending a burst of energy through my body to speed up and dropkick open the doors to Kruun's torture chamber. It was there we found a thrashed and shirtless Cyclops standing over his captors, including the 'Powerlord' himself, "Oh captain, my fucking captain!"

I saluted that man when I landed through those doors, completely unironically. How could I not do it seriously? He literally DIED to use himself as bait. All to give us an opening and get people inside of the main facility of the planet. That's some real leader shit.

"Bellamy, language," Mister Summers chided, sounding a bit worn out at the ordeal he had undergone. He did spare a bit of a smile though, "Also, thanks."

A soldier started getting up in the corner of the room. I went to go and shoot him, but Mister Summers did it instead, barely turning to blast him with his eye beam, "Uh... nevermind. You've got it," The man was in charge for a reason.

At that point, others started swarming in and securing the place. Mister Summers directed traffic, pointing out the main Breakworld guy, Powerlord Kruun. Mister Rasputin grabbed him and wrapped him up in metal to keep him in place.

As the guy in charge of the alien force threatening our planet was subdued, Mister Summers spoke to the rest of us."So here's where we stand. We have their Powerlord inside his most impregnable prison."

Mister Logan let out a snort, "We pregged it quick enough," Cocky, even if it was true. It sounded like something I'd have said, actually.

Mister Summers raised an eyebrow, "We're the X-Men," That did too.

" _We're_ not," Hisako and I said at the same time, pointing out the obvious.

Mister Logan gave me a smack on the back of the head, "You basically are now."

I didn't even mind getting hit like I was a misbehaving seven year-old. I was just happy to hear that come out of someone's mouth. Not only was I easy to goad into a fight, apparently I was easy to satisfy.

The Breakworld resistance leader moved forward to provide input, "Soldiers will come. Sylatin, Kruun's underling, will be massing a force, even now. He'll know how to get in."

The idea of a prolonged siege of that dump didn't appeal to anyone, "What kind of fight can we put up?" Mister Summers asked. We needed the planet's core. That was the only reason we had broken into the place to begin with.

Agent Brand's top S.W.O.R.D. soldier responded, "We've secured the facility and picked up some impressive weaponry. If they come hard, we can still buy you a few hours."

A bunch of pissed off soldiers with fancy new toys they could use to get some revenge on enemies that would be running straight at them to take the fortress back. It sounded like a good defensive fighting force to me.

"Can we use this guy as a bargaining chip?" Mister Summers asked Aghanne, referring to the captured Kruun.

Aghanne hesitated, but eventually shook her head no, "They will do everything in their power to protect him, but bargaining is not exactly a Breakworld concept," Things like mercy, surrender, retreat. Soft terms like that weren't recognized there, "If they begin to see Kruun as weak..."

They would take him out and have him replaced. Weakness was unforgivable to this culture. It was visible in the way they carried themselves and how advanced and overbearing their military complex was.

Agent Brand spared Kruun a glance, probably thinking of the best way to use him while we had him, "There's a chance Sylatin may nuke the place anyway. He's after Kruun's throne. He was making a deal with us."

I stopped her right there. This just didn't seem smart to me, "Wait. You made a deal with the guy's second-in-command?" I remembered something she'd told us before we'd ever arrived. Back when we'd been getting briefed on S.W.O.R.D.'s main ship, " _That_ was your source on Breakworld? Not any of these... resistance people?"

You know... the lady that seemed to know the inner workings of the planet's command? The person with the underground army that was fighting against the tyrant in charge, instead of the guy going along with his every whim?

Agent Brand scowled at me. It probably pissed her off to be questioned by a teenager, "Kid, what do you know about espionage?"

Age meant nothing when it came to logic, "I know you don't make a deal with anyone's right-hand man!" This wasn't a movie. Not everyone was ambitious beyond loyalty. Some people actually were fine with where they were in life. In a position like someone's underboss, this was normally the rule instead of the exception, "How do you think they got that high up? Because whoever the boss is can trust 'em! Why are we not dead?"

"Sure ain't from lack of trying," Mister Logan cracked, looking around at the large group standing around, getting information, "Can we get this show on the road already? I'd like to finish this while we've still got a planet to go back to."

Time was indeed of the essence, something Mister Summers understood, "Our priority is the missile. We can either disable it up close, or convince Kruun to stand down. We work both angles. Two squads."

Yay. We were all splitting up again. It seemed that life wouldn't let us all stay together and handle everything as a complete unit for too long. Granted, when we all came together, we could take down whole fortresses full of armed guards in less than twenty minutes. Maybe it was a little unfair to ask.

"Hank, you get Kitty to the missile. If the two of you can't disable that thing, it can't be done," Mister Summers said, "Agent Brand knows the terrain, so she's in. Logan and Armor are the escort. That whole satellite is going to come down on you once they realize you're there. Solaris has the most firepower out of the lot of us."

Right. Me, Miss Pryde, Dr. McCoy, Mister Logan, Hisako, and Agent Brand playing the role of the away team. Fantastic.

It was the first time Hisako and I had been stuck together since we'd been teleported from the Institute, "Paladins, mount up," She said under her breath. I laughed.

One of the people who didn't seem to agree with this arrangement was Mister Rasputin, "Scott..."

He wanted to go with Miss Pryde. He wanted to be away from the planet that he was supposed to be destined to destroy. Mister Summers didn't bend to sentiment, "I'm not asking, Pete. You're our ace in the hole. You can actually do the thing Kruun fears most – kill the planet," Colossus winced at the thought. Mister Summers set a hand on his shoulder, "It's ugly, but it's a card we've got to hold."

Seeing as how the other outcome was _our_ planet being destroyed, most of us didn't have a lot of sympathy for this place getting the ax. We were supposed to be superheroes though, so it wouldn't come to that if we could help it. Still, Earth came first. We lived there, after all.

Mister Summers continued issuing marching orders, making sure we were all organized, "Aghanne and Emma are with us. The rest of you are holding the fort. Make a big noise of it. The more forces you draw here, the better chance everyone else has."

The S.W.O.R.D. soldier from before held the weapon in his hand tightly, "Our boys who were captured got worked over pretty bad. We're ready for some fireworks."

"Outstanding."

What else needed to be said?

XxX

You know, whenever you hear about these great adventures, these amazing struggles that the good guys go through, it never sinks in just how exhausting all of that crap really is.

We had been going for days, off of very little rest. And I didn't sleep under normal circumstances. Now it was sinking in about Miss Frost's old worries on my risk of mental fatigue. All of the fighting, traveling around, more fighting, and never sitting still... I didn't even have time to bask in any real light source to recharge. I had to make due with artificial light most of the time, and it wasn't like there was even a lot of that on spaceships.

We landed on the fake moon in Breakworld's orbit without any problems. That was as good as our attack went. Breakworld soldiers came out of the woodwork to try and stop us. I mean wave after wave. They went at us en masse. And we couldn't stop. We had to keep pushing through. If we stopped, we'd get surrounded.

Saberwolf told me not to hold back in live combat. I didn't. There were too many bodies flying around for me to do that. When I shot someone, it was with the intention to make sure they didn't get back up again. When I hit something, I punched or kicked with the intent to go through it.

"This is legit. This is real. Can't back down. Can't run away," I heard Hisako chant to herself, her psionic armor protecting her body and making her a lethal weapon to smash through enemy soldiers.

I shot through her armor when I could. She trusted me enough to keep from adjusting her movements to let me do what I needed to do and continue fighting in her own way. That good old trust and teamwork that came with extended time in a squad. Nothing could beat it.

Somewhere along the way, Agent Brand had gotten shot by some energy weapon that left her down and out, chest smoking. Dr. McCoy scooped her up and carried her to a trench on the metal satellite that we had advanced to and hunkered down in for cover. I was our only ranged fighter since the lady with the guns went down, so I went to work popping my head up and shooting anything that came our way.

"Keep shooting, Glowstick," Mister Logan said, looking over my shoulder over our cover. We could both see the large numbers of enemies gathering a distance away. I could still hit them, but there were way too many of them for me to scare into a retreat. They would endure the losses as long as they could get their heavy weapons and units together.

They stood between us and the massive missile protruding from the satellite like a tower on solid land.

"This is so primitive," Miss Pryde complained, having hacked into their systems to try and disarm the missile, "There's constant position adjustment from the orbit thrusters, a combustion detonation system, and a clock. There's no actual uplink to the missile."

"How do you make a doomsday weapon with no controls?" Hisako complained, taking the moment we had huddled in the trench to rest. If she was too tired, she wouldn't be able to armor up, making her squishy and vulnerable, "The countdown is the only thing it relies on?"

Mister Logan yelled back at the others while he stayed over my shoulder, spotting the best places to fire at grouped pockets of troops to slow them down, "Anybody wanna hear about the army heading our way? It's a colorful story!"

Miss Pryde chose to leave the hacking alone once it was clear it would get us nowhere, "Enough. I'll take the shortcut," With that, she dove into the ground, phasing through the metal.

Fair play. If only one of us could make it to the missile, that was one more than we were otherwise getting there. She was also the best equipped to disarm all of the wiring inside of the damn thing.

You had to go with what you knew. I could shoot a bitch in the face from half a mile away, so that was what I stuck to doing. Leave the technical stuff for the people who could handle it.

Not that I wanted to complain, but it never ended. The fight just kept dragging on. They would move forward on our position, taking cover in other trenches when they could reach them

"Is Miss Pryde almost done yet?" I asked still doing my part to ward off soldiers. They kept getting closer. Pockets of them moved up whenever I targeted another set, "They're gonna make it here eventually!"

Dr McCoy was in communication with Miss Pryde as she worked from the inside, "Keep it up for as long as you can. She's inside of the missile now."

Mister Logan hopped down from his place as my spotter, "What's she telling you, Hank?"

A shake of the good doctor's head signified nothing good, "She's gone in for miles and hasn't found any wiring. No hatches. Nothing to help it navigate to Earth."

I was getting exhausted. I had never had to fight so often, so long, without ample time to properly recharge to keep going, "Hisako, eye check!"

She scampered up to where I was and took a gander at my eye color, "You're on red. Dark red," Well that was no good, "How close is that to empty?"

"Really close," I told her.

Agent Brand had recovered enough to limp over to the wall underneath me and lean against it, "So what? I have no idea how his powers work."

"If they go black, he dies," Dr McCoy said, bluntly describing my situation for the sake of the uninitiated.

Brand looked up at me and cursed, "Shit. Get down," She held a nasty burn on her stomach, "Time for some close-quarters action, I guess."

I slid down to sit on the ground. I needed a moment to get myself together. I had never been so tired before, "Sorry. I'm definitely running low. Just… just give me some time to recharge. A few minutes, maybe."

Mister Logan stooped down by me to get a good look at my condition, "You gonna be alright, Glowstick?"

I dropped my head back and looked up at him, "Does it matter? Still gotta fight."

Mister Logan grinned down at me and gave me a pat on the head, "Good answer, you damned smartass."

I sat there and tried to focus on gathering energy. As much as I could. If I actively concentrated on drawing in more light, I could do it faster. I couldn't do much else in the meantime, though.

However fast I could try to absorb more energy, it wasn't fast enough. I don't think anything would have been fast enough... or mattered in the end.

It was quick. It was sudden. There was no launch preparation. No countdown. No alarm. Out of nowhere, the missile just fired out of its hole in the satellite.

The rumbling started. All eyes turned to the missile. Dr. McCoy's mouth slowly fell open, "Oh no. No."

"She's firing!"

The sound of the missile taking off was the loudest thing that I had ever heard. For something of its size to launch, heading as far off as it was set to go, it needed a BIG push. Even covering my ears, I still felt like they were about to bleed.

And off it went. A big silver sliver, stabbing through the darkness of space. There was nothing we could do to pull it back down. The thing about it was, it didn't go off with a sustained eruption. It was more closer to a big burst.

"It's got no thrusters!" Hisako shouted at the top of her lungs, trying to get her voice to carry over the departing rumble of the launch blast.

"Of course not," Dr. McCoy whispered, more to himself than anyone else. His eyes were wide in horror, transfixed on the rapidly disappearing projectile flying away "Precise timing. Perfect trajectory, but no guidance systems. No engine. Just a giant metal rod, hollow at the front," My heart dropped into my stomach, "It's not a missile. It's a bullet."

Once it left the atmosphere of the satellite, it wasn't going to stop.

It wasn't going to lose momentum. Not in space. Not as carefully aimed as it was. It was going to go all the way and plow straight into the Earth. It was ten miles long. An asteroid that size hitting the planet would end it. With a bullet that size, no one had a chance.

After that, everything was a blur to me. There was yelling. I think we got in contact with Mister Summers, or Miss Frost. One of them. We ran. Left our positions behind and fled back to the ship. Staying there wouldn't mean anything. There weren't any controls. That much was clear by now.

The next moment, I found myself deposited in the cockpit, sitting at the steering wheel, voices chattering frantically around me. My chest hurt. Breathing was hard. I couldn't get enough breath.

Dr. McCoy's furry hands put mine on the wheel.

"Bellamy, I need you to fly for us. Take us back to the Breakworld," My fingers froze on the controls. My teacher was hurtling through space in an alien bullet headed straight for my planet. Dr. McCoy set his hands on my arms and roared into my ears, "BELLAMY! Fly the ship!"

I needed the shock to function. I took off without even thinking about it. My mind was out to lunch, but my body still knew what to do. It was full speed off of the satellite and back to the hellhole called the Breakworld.

"We should be going after Kitty," Mister Logan snapped, pacing around behind me like a wild animal. He was upset, obviously. We all were.

"We can't catch a bullet flying through space. Not in this vessel," Dr. McCoy reasoned, taking stock of what moves we had left to make, "Scott and Emma are headed back to Earth in Kruun's fastest ship. We need to back up Peter."

A growl rolled from my self-defense teacher's throat, "Pete should do the goddamn job and get out," I couldn't help but agree.

"Tell me I didn't just hear you suggest genocide," Dr. McCoy said in return.

"What do you think they're trying to do to us!?"

Agent Brand tried to get cooler heads to prevail. Fighting amongst ourselves in the dead of space, or otherwise falling apart now would do nothing for any of us, "If Summers gets close enough, he can bounce a message to Earth. Maybe get some of the Avengers working on this from the other end. We need to take one last shot at Kruun."

Someone there, with all of the minds and abilities amassed on Earth, had to be able to stop that bullet. If we couldn't, someone had to.

Mister Logan still wanted to sink his claws into something fleshy and alive, "I can kill him, right?"

Agent Brand burst his bubble, "I've got something more diplomatic in mind."

Hisako sat in a passenger seat, staring out at the black of space, knees pulled up to her chest, "Peter doesn't know, does he?" She asked, petrified by what was happening, "He doesn't know about Kitty."

XxX

Going back to the Breakworld and putting the squeeze on the guy in charge didn't do anything. There wasn't any way to stop what they'd set into motion.

The Earth wasn't destroyed. But in the end, it wasn't because we saved it. It wasn't all of us, anyway. Even Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers™ weren't able to stop Breakworld's weapon before it reached them.

The bullet went straight through the planet and out the other side without touching anything. All thanks to the person that had been stuck inside of it when it had been fired.

Unfortunately, there was no turning it around or catching it after the fact. And off it went, where no one could reach it – with Miss Pryde inside of it. The hero of the day, and yet no one could do anything to help the person that had saved everyone's ass.

Breakworld wasn't destroyed. A conspiracy had led all of this to occur. We were all used by the leader of the resistance against Kruun for the sake of getting Mister Rasputin onto the planet to destroy it. I wished she was still alive. I wished I could give her the beating I wanted to so badly. The crazy bitch actually considered destroying her planet saving it, was willing to let ours be destroyed to accomplish it, and we lost someone precious preventing both.

Speaking of their 'Powerlord', he was deposed by Colossus, but kept in power because no one there wanted to run a whole planet. They would behave because if they didn't, we could always come back and finish the job. After that we all went home with our tails between our legs.

All of the scientists and mystics that knew they owed the X-Men their asses for bailing them out of the end of the world tried to help. All of those big brains, and none of them had any kind of solution to make the bullet stop, get the bullet back, pry it open, nothing. It was a real Humpty-Dumpty situation. All of those minds, and no one had any ideas on how to clean all of this up.

Mister Rasputin was a wreck. A metal shell of a man, if ever there was one. He and Miss Pryde had been together, romantically. They had just been reunited, and just like that they'd been split up again. Mister Summers didn't let anything show, but he was a lot more attentive to Hisako and I in the days after we got back. Believe it or not, Miss Frost actually shed a tear.

Mister Logan sulked around day drinking, at least until Hisako had snapped him out of it and sought him out for some training. Speaking of Hisako, she'd basically put her head down and put her shoulder to the plow. She started training a lot harder on her own. Solo training was all we really could do at this point. The semester was close to an end. Too close to replace the advisor to the Paladins. It was too soon for something like that, so it was for the best.

Again, we all tried to get back to normal, just like the last time some terrible happening had befallen us. This one hit a little bit closer to home than before.

"Yo, brahs," Eddie said, returning to where we were hanging out in the common area on a weekday night. It was me, Eddie, Ben from the Paragons, plus Julian, Santo, and Brian from the Hellions, "Fear not, I've come with a reload of refreshments."

Julian grinned at the sight of the two six-packs dangling from Eddie's hands, liquid sloshing around inside, "Nice, Tancredi," He said, telekinetically pulling a can away for himself, "You stole Logan's beers?"

Eddie faked offense at being accused of theft, "Who says they're his? They could be anyone's," He said in jest before waving it off, "That's the excuse I'm using if he comes after us, since I know you'll all bail on me."

Ignoring, of course, that we were way too young to be drinking in the first place.

Brian let out a laugh, waving off taking a can when one was passed his way, "Running away won't matter," He pointed out, "By the time you realize he's coming, he'll probably have us all ID'd by smell."

A rumbling laugh came from Santo's rocky throat, "God, that's weird to think about," He said, "Speaking of weird, how's it going with that new teammate of yours? She's like Logan, isn't she?"

Julian flicked the tab from the can over at his friend, bouncing it off of his head, "Santo, let the squad stuff go for tonight."

"What? You're more hard up about the squads than anyone?"

"And what just happened that would probably make it a really shitty thing to talk about, genius?"

Julian really wasn't a bad guy. He was just the mutant equivalent of the high school top dog jock. He legitimately thought he was better than everybody else, and went out of his way to prove it. But if you proved you had some spine and some talent, he'd back off, which he did after the whole Danger Room kerfuffle.

Granted, it wouldn't change everything about how he interacted with you, he was still an asshole, but it definitely helped cut down on the confrontations. For instance, I could sit down and drink a beer with the fucker.

While Julian and Brian were admonishing their teammate Santo, Eddie front-flipped over the back of a couch and landed on the cushion, tossing a beer to both me and Ben, "Here you go, glorious leaders. Pop one open and be somebody."

Ben nodded his thanks and did just that. I held the can out in front of me and stared up at the ceiling. I didn't feel much like hanging out, but I didn't want to be a downer.

Eddie gave me a hard pat on the back and a grin before turning his attention to the NBA Playoff game we had all gathered to watch that night. He was trying to keep spirits up on the team, not just here, but otherwise. I had to meet my main man halfway and make an effort to move forward.

"Why don't they tell us about this part?" Eddie asked, popping the tab of his can, "I mean, we always hear about the wins. All the times they stopped Magneto, or went into space and kicked ass-."

"-But the shit like this never came up, did it?" I said, getting a positive hum from Eddie as he started drinking, "When it doesn't go right. When they lose. There's a graveyard on the property for a reason," And we'd been there before, not too long ago.

We didn't have to go there again. Miss Pryde wasn't dead. She was just... lost. Gone. Away from us, somewhere we couldn't go and get her. Not easily.

"You want to talk about it?" Eddie asked, shrugging when I turned his way questioningly, "Hisako already talked to me. Probably didn't want to talk about it anymore than you do, but she did. Blindfold probably read both your minds already, so she knows what you're feeling better than you do."

Well, I had to talk to someone, and the last thing I wanted was some kind of therapy session again with someone like Miss Frost. Eddie was as good as anyone to talk to. Better than almost anyone, actually.

"I lied, Eddie," I eventually told him, opening my own drink, "I said something that I couldn't back up. I said it like it was a fact. Not only was I wrong, I was wrong at the top of my voice."

Eddie scoffed and took a sip of his beer, "Dude, there was literally nothing you could have done. You could have made it there with hours to spare, maybe a whole day. There wasn't a way to stop that thing from firing."

"It didn't sound like there was anything anyone could have done," Ben interjected, sounding a bit pensive at maybe prying into the conversation of others. There was no need. He was sitting right there. If I didn't want him to hear what I had to say, I wouldn't have said it or I would have left first.

"I know. That's what I mean," I said, bringing the fellow squad leader into our talk, "After the Danger Room thing, I always figured that, okay, we weren't ready for any of that. We got caught with our pants down and we got screwed. Fine. Make sure that doesn't happen again."

Everyone remembered. I kind of broke the atmosphere at the ceremony after the Field Day deaths. I said some brash shit. I ran my mouth to get everybody to stand tall, which I felt was fine... just so long as I could back it up. In the end, I didn't.

Replaying everything in my head, the way I always did when I ran a training program or fought, did nothing. No matter how many times I ran it all back, I couldn't think of anything that we could have realistically changed that would have made a difference for the better. It would have been funny if the outcome hadn't been so damned sad.

I took a sip and leaned back again, pressing the can to my head, "We did everything right. At least, it looked like we did. We made it in time. We got to the doomsday weapon, and then... poof," I opened the fist of my free hand, miming the release of dust, "It's like, 'Hey, congratulations! You did it! You still lose though!'"

Frustrating wasn't the word to define it. Maddening was more like it. It almost made you wonder what the point of it was. Leave it to someone else. But then, if everyone thought that way, who would be left to stop all of the disasters?

Speaking of which, "You're coming back, right?" Eddie asked, "The semester's almost over. You've had enough of what this place is really like. No one would blame you if you cut bait and left."

He had to have been kidding. Even Ben looked at him as if to ask if he had been serious. Eddie knew me better than that.

"And leave you guys all alone? No way. You guys need me, and you know it," I said, trying to bring some levity back to the proceedings, "I am the Paladins' guiding light in the dark, literally."

Eddie laughed and threw up the 'too sweet', "No, I know that already. I'm _your_ hype man, remember?" I reciprocated with a 'too sweet' of my own, "You sure you still want to be an X-Man though?"

There was no question to be asked, "Yeah, because the rest of you still do," I told him. As much as it would eat away at me if anyone else got hurt, or worse, died, on my watch, it would tear me up that much more if I found out it happened and I wasn't around to at least try and do something to stop it, "Eddie, I don't care about saving the world. I fight for the people around me. That's what means the world to me."

Some people didn't have the stomach for this place. After the semester ended, a lot of kids probably wouldn't be back. A lot of kids' parents would probably pull them out. I wouldn't be one of them. Not if I could help it. But that's a part of this story for another time.

"Hey, hey, hey, halftime's ending!" Brian's voice called out as everybody else made their way back to the couches to sit down and watch the second half of the game.

"Alright!" Santo stomped over, taking a seat in a reinforced chair for the bigger students, "Hey, Tancredi, beer me!" Eddie grabbed one from one of the six-packs and tossed it over. Santo caught it in his big rocky mitt and crushed it when he grabbed onto it, "...Oops."

Beer dripped out of his hand onto the floor. I felt a smart remark coming on until I was cut off by a roaring voice from deep within the halls of the living areas.

"GRRRRR... WHO THE FUCK DRANK ALL MY GODDAMN BEERS!"

Everyone could feel Mister Logan's question accompanied by the metallic ring of his claws unsheathing. We all scattered like cockroaches when the lights came on. I watched the rest of the game in my room, in fear of having my door carved open by the Wolverine, thirsty for blood and alcohol.

It was a good thing I didn't sleep in the first place. I definitely wouldn't have gotten any sleep that night.

* * *

 **That's it for this chapter, guys. Whew, what a monster. But I couldn't find a natural place to split it, so I kept it all together.**

 **And with that, the Paladins have lost their senior X-Men advisor to the depths of space in a mission that was doomed from the start. Another harsh reality of heroism, that sometimes your circumstances just won't allow you to win, especially when you're as curse-stricken as the X-Men seem to be.**

 **So what comes next? We'll see. Until next time, I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	17. Never Miss A Beat

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, or any other property of Marvel. Damn it, superpowers need to be a real thing. I was born a few centuries too early, guys.

 **Chapter 17: Never Miss A Beat**

* * *

With everything that happened to us on a regular basis, it was very easy to forget that we went to a school. You know, with actual classes that we had to sit in on. Not classes like 'the best way to take down killer robots', but history or literature.

Whatever else was going on, we were still students. Unless something outrageous was going on, when final exams rolled around, it was basically, 'Suck it up, princess. Pass your tests'.

I put down my pen for a moment to crack my knuckles and rub my eyes. The entirety of the Paladins had gone to the library to try and get some studying done. Eddie, Hisako, Ruth, even Laura figured it would be a good idea to hit the books together.

"That equation is incorrect," Laura said, taking the opportunity to look over my work. She glanced at it for a second and pointed to where I made the mistake, "There. Go back and redo the problem from here."

I stared at the paper in front of me, the book I'd written down the problem from, and then at Laura, "You barely even-. How did you-?" I eventually gave up and pushed my things away, "Goddamn calculus."

Fuck math.

"This is super-lame," Eddie said, thumping his head down on his open book set on the table, "We're superheroes-in-training, stuck here studying for tests."

Hisako rolled her eyes. She was closer to Eddie than she was to the rest of us, but that didn't mean he couldn't irk her sometimes, "Yeah, I can just see it now. Wing, eventually a full-fledged member of the X-Men, helps save the world... and has to head to Biology 2 in the morning with the other sophomores."

Eddie wasn't impressed by that vision of his future, "I'm a junior, thank you. Not like they're gonna drop me a year because I fail anything this year. Leave the precog stuff to Blindfold," He said, gesturing his head Ruth's way, "I'm just saying, some squad work might get my brain juices flowing, right Bel?"

Why he had to bring me into this was beyond me. I was just sitting there doing my time studying, "I've had about enough superhero shit to last me a little while, thank you. The flying ginger has a point though. This is boring."

Hisako pushed a book across the table that hit me in the stomach, "Calculus," She said, "I didn't tutor you just for you to quit on the home stretch."

I didn't want to look down at the book containing my most hated subject, "I have a C in there," Closer to a D actually, but no one needed to know the exact specifics of my grades, "I would have to completely tank the exam to fail the class."

Which wasn't going to happen. Even if I failed, it would be a high F. I could live with that if it meant I wouldn't have to step foot in a calculus class again.

Hisako smirked at me, fist underneath her chin, waving a pen around in her fingers, "Do you _want_ me to lord my better grades over yours until the next time? Come on, Bel, at least make it a challenge for me."

Damn her. I had pretty nice grades. I hovered around the A-B mark. Getting C's was considered struggling by my standards. But Hisako kept. Straight. Goddamn. A's.

The only class I dominated her in was history. And dominated was too strong a word. She worked hard and got high 90's, but I sleepwalked through that class and posted up 100's across the board. It infuriated her, and I loved it.

When I heard names, dates, and events, I could picture the story that went with them in my head. That made it easy to memorize everything. All history was to me was story time, just with real events. I didn't ever have to crack a book. I just listened to the lectures and took notes. Notes that I never looked at. So many dead trees for no good reason.

"I don't remember when this became a GPA contest," I said, not admitting to the fact that I completely accepted it as one months ago, "I just never want to look at a book with numbers ever again. I'm reviewing my Spanish stuff now."

"You have an A in Spanish," Laura said, not looking up from her own studies.

This was true, "I would like to keep that A," I said, "Mejor que perder el tiempo en el cálculo," I said with a wink and a click of my tongue."

Ruth spoke up at that point, "Bellamy thinks it is better not to waste time on calculus, yes."

I looked over at Ruth, who hadn't really touched any of her study materials since we'd gotten to the library. That had been damn close to what I'd actually said. She'd gotten the gist of it, at least, "Huh. Didn't know Ruthie spoke Spanish."

Eddie rolled his eyes, "She doesn't. You think in English, genius. Besides, even if she didn't read minds, it's kind of obvious calculus is on your shit list, seeing as how you fail at it."

"I don't fail at calculus," I said, turning my nose up at the idea of not succeeding at anything, "I just don't get high grades in calculus."

"-Which is the same as failing to you," Hisako said. I hissed at her like a cat for knowing that much about me, "What happened to the Bellamy that didn't accept failure?"

I looked down at the book in front of me with a sense of dread, "He got stuck staring at numbers and symbols that he can't make heads or tails of for two hours a day since April," A stray thought hit me, "Can I just cheat on this thing?" I whispered.

Eddie grinned at the idea, "You say that like it's easy," He said, "You can try, I guess. I don't care. Does anyone here care?"

No one did. Not really. Hisako made an observation, but other than that, no one was offended, "There's no way you're cheating in any class in this school and getting away with it."

A fair point. Most of our teachers were X-Men. They noticed when students tried to sneak cheat sheets in, or write down answers somewhere to help themselves. We had all seen examples of this. That hadn't been where I'd been going with that line of thinking though.

"...What if I just got a psychic to just shove all of that crap into my head?" I asked. Everyone at the table looked over at me, even Laura, who kept to herself most of the time.

Eddie looked around and lowered his head closer to the table, "You're going to use Blindfold to cheat on your test?" He whispered as quietly as he could, "...That's fucking awesome! Why didn't I think of that sooner?"

Hisako looked over at Ruth, who didn't really seem to react much to what I'd said, "I'm pretty sure that if she could do that, she would have already offered, at least to Bellamy," Ruth frowned at her. She might have said something to her telepathically. I didn't know what, "Don't give me that. You know you would have."

"There is a school policy against this," Laura pointed out. This time, all of us looked at her. It seemed like the attention made her want to shrink down in her chair, "...I have read the student handbook before."

Of course she had.

I raised my hand like I was in class, "Wait, a rule against cheating, or a rule against using telepathy to cheat?" I asked Laura to specify.

"Right. Because they're both totally not the same thing," Hisako remarked sarcastically.

"How would even Frost know?" Eddie liked the idea of getting free info shot into his head too much to let it go, "As a matter of fact, why would she even check any of us in particular?"

...Other than my test grade magically (read: suspiciously) shooting up with very little history of progression to reach that point?

Ruth held up a finger and then slowly pointed my way, "Sorry. Yes, Miss Frost does not like Bellamy, no."

Still? I thought we were past that. I was for the most part. I mean, yes, I wasn't going to turn my back on her anytime soon, and I wasn't about to take anything she said to me at face value, but she wasn't the only one. I'd been burned too much by having a 'the adults know how to handle it' kind of mindset.

It wasn't personal. It was more along the lines of get smart or get dead. Never miss a goddamn beat.

And speaking of getting smart, "Do you want to take that chance?" Hisako asked me, "You just said you'd pass, even if you failed the exam."

"Yeah, but..." I wanted to beat her GPA. I didn't say that though. Are you kidding me? No way, "I _really_ don't want to fail the exam."

She didn't need to hear it to know my motivations. Sometimes I wondered if there were two mind readers on the Paladins, "I swear to God, Bel, you're hopeless sometimes."

"Calm down. I'm not gonna do it," It wasn't worth the risk of getting busted, since it would have been just my luck to fall to such a fate. I cracked open the book on the table in front of me, viciously flipping pages to where I'd left off, "...Fucking calculus."

XxX

The Paladins were not the only ones hitting the books. For all of the training squads, you couldn't just coast through without passing classes. It was like students on a high school team. If you failed utterly at everything, you were suspended from team training or competing with others.

There were no exceptions, no matter what Julian said when it came to the Hellions having an in because the headmistress was Miss Frost, their senior advisor.

So all of us in every squad knuckled down and cracked a book. Some more than others. Some in different ways than others.

I don't know what I expected when I stepped up to Megan's dorm room door, "When you called me and told me you wanted to hang out, I didn't think I'd have another book in front of me."

"Aww, all studied out?" Megan asked. It must have shown all over my face, because she giggled a bit at me, "I get it. Ben's been a slave driver all week long. The only reason he let me get away today is because I said I was getting you to tutor me~," She held up a history book in front of her face, waving it around, asking me with her eyes to help.

What was I supposed to do? She was just standing there in those itty-bitty shorts. The way she fidgeted in place on the dorm carpet was designed to make me look at her legs. She knew _exactly_ what she was doing. A bonafide sucker for pretty girls, I am.

That was how I ended up in her room. At first glance, it was hard to tell which side of it belonged to her, and which side belonged to her teammate Hope. Most other people had roommates, except for me. But seeing as how I joined late in the year and already shared my room with a giant metal wolf, the staff had never gotten around to putting any students with me.

I was eventually able to tell whose side was which. Both sides were brightly decorated. From the posters I saw, both had roughly the same taste in music and a lot of other things. Megan's side was a bit more cluttered. Everything was a bit more cluttered. Not that it was dirty, things were clean and in place, but they were more haphazardly put away.

Megan hopped over to her bed and sat on it, leaning against a wall with a Dazzler poster on it and patting a spot next to her meant for me. When I sat down, she deposited the history book in my lap and basically took over my entire left side, "Comfortable?"

"You're getting kind of familiar, aren't you?" I said. Not that I had a problem with it at all.

Megan reached over and poked me in the middle of the forehead, "I know I said it before, I want to get to know you better," If possible, she got in even closer to me than before, "See this? The fact that it doesn't bother you at all tells me a little more about you than I knew ten minutes ago."

What? That I had no issues with a cute girl damn near hanging off of me? Of course not, "Well how about we multitask then?" I proposed, "I'm gonna ask you questions. Get one right, you get to ask me a question."

She didn't like the idea of a quiz-reward system, scrunching her face up at the thought, "Can't you just tell me about yourself?"

I couldn't help myself. I laughed, "Yeah, but this is more fun."

She smacked me a few times on the chest for laughing at her, "It's not so fun for me."

"You _did_ ask me to help you study," I reminded Megan, catching her hand to get her to stop, "I actually want you to do well. You know, get to rub it in some faces... maybe let me preen about it a little bit," I gave her a little nudge that got a begrudging smile out of her, "Come on. What do you say? I promise I won't make it too hard."

"You'd better not just to get out of answering questions, Bel,"

"I won't. I am an open book. And speaking of open books..."

So we went back over a chapter or two that she said she didn't have the best recollection of. The unification of Germany in the 1800s. To be fair, there was a lot of little bits that went into it that made it complex.

It took about thirty minutes to get through the chunks that she had problems with. Being that I _did_ know what was important in these damn things, I gave her my summarized version of events and names. People and what they did that made them relevant was the thing she had the most trouble with, so it was what I focused on most of all.

I remembered most names of any historic reference because I could associate them with one sentence of what made them famous in the first place. It was like sticking my head into the rabbit hole, and after those two things were put together, everything else about them that I knew started linking up. It turned out, that process actually did help Megan, so that was what I used.

It was exciting seeing her excited about more of this stuff sticking. Before she could get bored, I started the line of questions, which perked her up before she could start coming down, going with the momentum and all of that.

"The Franco-Prussian War of 1870. What was the decisive event that led to the beginning of the end?"

"The Battle of Sedan," Megan answered with a confidence that she hadn't started with, "I remembered that one because of the car."

I grinned to myself. I did things like that a lot. It worked. The only downside was that if it really stuck, every time she thought of a 4-door vehicle, info on that battle would flash through her head for a moment.

She was right, but I wasn't willing to make things quite that easy, "That was a cream puff. Battles are easy to remember. Why was it so decisive?" I demanded follow-up details.

Megan was up to the task however. She did great, answering quick, "Napoleon III surrendered. He was emperor, and that really messed up stuff back in Paris."

That was fine to me. I didn't need any technical, flowery, nuts-and-bolts answers. Most of the exam was going to be multiple choice. Save the expansive crap for the essay questions, "What about the army?" I continued asking further.

"Napoleon surrendered his army along with him."

"Why else did that matter so much? Was that the only force France had available?"

"The rest of them were caught in a pinch," Vague. Too vague. I gave her a look. I needed a better answer than that. She started to panic a bit, but I didn't relent until I got a solid answer, "A-A siege! The Siege of Metz! They surrendered a little bit later, I think."

I nodded, satisfied by her answer, "Good. I was about to ask that next," I wouldn't ask for an exact date. Tests didn't ask for specific dates unless it was like 'signing of the Declaration of Independence' in the U.S. big, "Okay, so with no army in the field to stop them, what came next?"

Megan bounced in place on the bed, getting more excited as we went on. She knew I was running out of steam, "The Siege of Paris. It went for four months. Paris surrendered in January 1871. That was basically the end of the war," She rushed her answer. She was right, but was clearly getting impatient, "Now you have to answer _my_ questions!"

"Almost. We're nearly done," She could pout at me all she wanted to. I was a rock, "What big things did the Prussians get out of winning the war?"

"Germany was officially recognized as a unified country, and they got the Alsace-Lorraine territory," Megan said before leaning on me and shaking me, "Bel... come ooooooon! You said I could ask you one question if I answered one question. You did, like, fifty questions in a row!"

I let her do as she pleased, it was funnier than anything else. It had all worked out well, "You got 'em all, didn't you?" I said, "It was six, by the way. Six questions. That's what you get, so go ahead and take your best shot."

She grabbed my hands and moved us into a position facing each other. It felt like I was about to get a palm reading. That, or a lie detector test.

Megan hadn't thought of what she was going to ask me the whole time we had been studying. It took her a moment to come up with something to ask, "What's the most scared you've ever been?" She eventually blurted out.

I shrugged. It wasn't a hard thing to answer, seeing as how all of the possible candidates had happened within the last six months. One in particular stuck out from the rest, "Before the Danger Room wigged out during Field Day, it did it late at night when I was all by myself," I recalled going through a slew of opponents that I felt were impossible to defeat on my own, "I think I might have cried."

"Wow," My answer caught her more off-guard than I thought it would have, "You cried. I can't see you crying about… well, anything."

I wasn't some crazy-tough man of action, no matter how much I wanted to be, "I wasn't bawling and snotting everywhere. But when I knew I was a dead man, I did kind of lose it," I reasoned defensively, "That's never happening again."

"I think the Paladins get into more trouble than any other training squad at school," Megan said, "More than the New Mutants and the Hellions. I'm sure of it."

I couldn't argue with that. The facts spoke for themselves. No one else had gotten caught up in preventing an intergalactic war, "Probably. It's not like we go looking for it though. You were there twice. This crap just happens to me," As it would continue to. But that was inconsequential, "What else you got?"

I hoped it would be a more fun thing to discuss than shit that kept me up at night. Fortunately, I was not disappointed, "What kind of TV shows do you watch?"

"Anything that can make me laugh is always good. Though, I don't get that very much," Most sitcoms and situational comedies were terrible to me, "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Archer are some of my favorites," Which, come to think of it, probably explained a lot about the kind of person I am."

From the look on her face, it was clear she wasn't familiar with it, "I don't think I've seen either of those."

That was good, all things considered, "I'm probably going to keep you away from them for a while then," I said to myself, lest she find out how terrible my sense of humor could be, "I watch a lot of specials from stand-up comedians too. Ones I really like, I download. Come to think of it, what do you like?"

Getting to know each other went both ways after all, and Megan seemed more than happy to share, "Dramas with music as a major theme. Empire. Nashville. Those are fun. And the soundtracks are always really good," She said, before thinking of something else, "Oh, and I wish there were more game shows like Jeopardy nowadays. I always liked that one."

That sounded like fun. I didn't watch much of Jeopardy, but when I did, I had a good time. That was a solid selection. Something it might be fun to curl up with her and watch. Not that I would say that out loud. It didn't sound cool.

"I watch more movies than TV shows," I admitted, "My parents run a movie theater in San Francisco, so I've seen almost everything that's come out since I was a little kid," For better or for worse.

"What 5 movies are your background noise then?"

It was a very good question. I grinned at her catching on to good things to ask for some fun answers. I don't remember how much time we spent actually talking, but the sun had still been up when we'd started. The next thing I knew, night had fallen.

"What kind of girls do you like?" She launched my way as one of her later targeted questions.

She had been building up to asking something along those lines. Honestly, I'd expected that sort of subject to come up sooner than it had, "You, obviously," The fact that I'd been prepared to answer didn't mean I was going to make it easy. What was the fun in that?

Megan could tell I was being difficult for the sake of it and hit me a few times in the chest with her palms. They were really weak; funnier to me than anything else. Eventually I grabbed her wrists and put her hands by her sides, "I'm serious. Come on. You said you'd answer anything I asked you," She told me, "What do you like? Cute girls? Girls who seem grown up? Blondes? Bad girls? Smart types? Girls with wings?" She batted her eyes and gave her wings a quick flutter for emphasis. I thought it was neat.

"Cute girls are fine and everything, but there's lots of things I consider cute," I was very accepting of all sorts of girls' physical traits. I was pickier when it came to what was on the inside, "Compatibility is a bigger issue for me."

I was vague on purpose, almost maddeningly so. Who went into detail on something like that so easily? Some things took a little prodding, "What _do_ you look for then?"

I thought about my answer, crossing my arms over my chest and staring out straight ahead across the room. This took a lot of thought to articulate, "Well, first and foremost, a girl has to be able to tolerate me," I said, "I'm not changing who I am. I like who I am. If something bothers a girl that likes me, I'll cut down on it, but if someone's looking at me like some kind of project, that they can turn me into their 'ideal guy' with a little time and effort, if they get rid of this and that about me, and I find out that's what they want... well, let's just leave it at that."

Because _I_ would be leaving it at that. There were over 6 billion people on the planet. There had to be someone that was willing to take me as I was, and I wasn't against playing the field until I found that person. Just being honest.

I shook my head in distaste, thinking about my next point, "I don't want somebody with a chip on their shoulder. You know, somebody with something to prove, tries to turn everything into a fight," I didn't see myself dealing with that for very long, no matter what else was good about their looks or personality, "...That shit's not fun."

My answer confused her a bit, "Then why do you spend so much time around Hisako? You guys fight all the time," My team dynamic did include a lot of myself and Armor butting heads. But that was more for team morale. It was just how we worked.

I had also never been accused of trying to sleep with Hisako, so that rendered her example moot, "I start most of that, plus it's never serious," I said, waving off her reference as swiftly as possible, "I'm talking about the kind of person that looks for reasons to get mad and be pissed off about something. Girls with no chill."

Megan knew gossip when she heard it and gave me a little nudge to get more out of me, "Got any names to go with that?" She asked, leaning in close to coax it out of me.

Not a chance. I kept lists like that to myself. The only people who needed to know I had enemies were myself and said enemies, "Sure! If you want that to be your next question. I gave you that last extra one as a freebie."

"So stingy," She stuck her tongue out playfully before realizing how close we'd gotten. I'd realized it before she had. I could feel the heat coming off of her, could see the color in her cheeks, "Hey... can I ask you one more question?"

We were so close, I could tell where she was looking on my face when her eyes strayed from mine, "You can do anything you want."

I couldn't believe that had just come out of my mouth. It took a herculean effort to keep from licking my lips, no matter how self-conscious I felt about the chance that they were dry. I had to be cool, even as Megan took a deep breath and started to move in closer.

'Oh shit! What the fuck do I do now?' I remembered as the exact thoughts that shot through my head at that moment, until a good shot of 'whatever' attitude filled my system, 'How about you quit being a bitch and let it happen? This is a good thing.'

I was absolutely right. I _was_ being a bitch. A pretty girl was moving in to kiss me, and I was freaking out? What the hell was my problem. This was a good thing. It was a great thing. With as much as I admitted aloud to adoring the female form, it was the best thing that had happened to me in months!

All of this thinking occurred over the course of a quarter-second. In the next half-second, it was all rendered moot when the door clicked open and Megan's roommate walked inside.

Hope entered with a yawn, her schoolbag slung over her shoulder. It took her a moment to realize that there had been other people in the room. It surprised her, because I was never there, and Megan had taken to the air just above the bed we'd been sitting on. To her credit, she was at least apologetic.

She held up her hands and slid over to her side of the room to drop her things, "Oops! I didn't know I was interrupting anything! I thought you were going to ask to go into his room, not bring him to ours," So she had known about it. Any goodwill she'd established with me by saying sorry was quickly lost when she plopped down on her bed, posted up to watch, "By all means, continue. Just pretend I'm not here."

Anytime she felt like peeling that grin off of her face would have suited me just fine, "...Are you going to leave?" I asked pointedly.

Hope blew a raspberry and waved me off, "No way. Are you kidding? I've been waiting on her to get the guts to try this for at least a month."

And she would have to wait for that much longer as well, which I was not pleased with. Things quickly got awkward, and I felt the whole deal die off pitifully.

I tried to leave the room, maintaining some semblance of poise as I did so, "I think we can pick this up some other time," I didn't necessarily mean the studying, either, "I'll call you later?" I said/asked, not trying to sound too hopeful.

"I'd like that, Bellamy," I smiled at her and tilted my hat her way old west style. I looked over at Hope who gave me a cheeky wave, along with a 'Bye, Bel,' that came out in the kind of lilt that made me wonder if it was bad form to laser pointer her in the eye really quick. Fortunately, I didn't have to think much about it. I had closed the door and barely taken five steps down the hall when I heard-, "God, Hope, you suck!"

Took the words right out of my mouth, darling.

"Whaaaat? You didn't have to stop on my account. I just would have been a witness."

Knowing how much Megan could talk when she was well motivated to, I knew Hope had an earful ahead of her. Good.

XxX

Nothing made you feel like a boss quite like riding on the back of a big, weaponized metal wolf... not that many other people would ever get to experience such a thing. But if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

For some reason, it had struck me to ask Saberwolf if he would let me do it on this particular day. To my surprise, he agreed, and got down to let me on easily. I expected to get bucked off the moment we got in front of people, but that didn't happen. When my friends came along, we didn't even bring up how unusual it was.

Eventually, after we caught looks from a dozen students passing us by outside, Hisako just had to mention it, "Why are you letting him ride you?"

"It is no bother to me," Wolf replied, "Also, if he gets cut, it is his own fault."

She looked at some of the sharp edges on Wolf, and the blades he kept tucked away on his person. It made her feel better about me sitting upon his back, "Alright then. Carry on."

"I'm just glad you don't have any blades on your back, big guy," I said, patting my A.I. friend, before addressing my mutant friends, "Look at this and tell me it's not awesome!"

"It _is_ awesome," Eddie agreed, "Can he, like, be on our squad?"

I didn't know quite how to respond. I didn't want to speak for Wolf, but it didn't seem like he was eager to do it for himself, "I've asked him. He's not down with it... unless he's changed his mind since the last time... yeah?" I tried to lead him, but he shook his head, "No? Well, that's okay."

As far as I was concerned, he was still a Paladin. He'd been in his fair share of the crap we'd been caught up in at school. He trained with me just as hard as anyone else. Yes, he was one of us.

We had time between final exams and had linked up in between leaving our last ones, so we spent the time shooting the shit before our next ones, "So, are you guys are ready for the dance?" Hisako asked.

Eddie and I both made faces at the prospect of going to that kind of school function, "Ugh," We both said in unison.

Hisako wasn't amused by our blasé attitudes, "Oh, come on," She said, "At least one of you has someone you can actually take to this thing, _Bel_ ," She aimed my way.

It didn't matter if I went with Megan or not. I would be miserable and pretending not to be the entire time, "I hate these things. They're always tense and weird and never any fun," Standing around in a school gym in dress clothes surrounded by people dancing to squeaky clean versions of Top 40 hits from six months ago? No thank you, "It'd be more fun if we threw our own party. Then I might actually get something out of it."

"Huh..." Eddie hummed as he looked out on the sprawling quad full of students enjoying the late spring day outside, "...You know, boss man, that's actually not a bad idea," He said.

Hisako recoiled at what we perceived as Eddie's face of reasoning, "What, throw a party? Are you kidding? There's no way we could pull that off."

It was then that I grabbed at my chin in thought. Sure, there were some obstacles-, okay, there were plenty of obstacles, but nothing that we couldn't handle or deal with the consequences of once we were found out, "Not by ourselves we couldn't. We'd have to bring in some help to make it all work."

"Help?"

"Yes, Hisako. Help."

She looked at me skeptically. It was known between the lot of us that we weren't necessarily the cool kids that everyone would jump at doing favors for, "Help from who?"

"You let me worry about that."

"I wonder why that doesn't fill me with any kind of comfort."

Doubt was poisonous, and I would have none of it. The more I tossed the idea of a party around in my head, the more I liked it, "No, I'm serious. Fast Eddie is right. We can do this."

Eddie hovered off of the ground next to Wolf and threw an arm around me, pointing my way, "We have on our side a man that has probably seen every copy-and-paste party movie released over the course of the 90s and 2000s," He said, getting hearty nods of agreement out of me, "I'm offended that you think we can't pull this off."

Hisako looked at us like we were two gigantic idiots, but ran out of energy to debate Eddie on the matter, "Why can't you be this ambitious about anything else? Anything. Almost literally anything, and you could probably get so much more done."

"Oh, we're gonna get something done, alright! Eddie!" Without needing to really be told, he sat down behind me on Wolf's back, "Away!"

I expected Wolf to take off running in the direction I pointed. Instead, Wolf took off flying into the air. He seemed just as alarmed as I was from the way his legs kicked. I looked back at Eddie who was grinning, clearly behind it all.

The son of a bitch was making us fly just like him from contact with him, "I didn't know you could do that!" I yelled, stoked at the new discovery of his powers.

He was very pleased with himself, and with good reason, "I just found out I could! It's awesome!"

Yes, Eddie. Yes it goddamn was.

XxX

Want to make a big impression? Enter on a big metal wolf. Want to make a bigger impression? _Fly_ in on a giant metal wolf. It did my heart good to know that at a school full of mutants with all sorts of powers, I could still present a spectacle. And the best part about presenting a spectacle, while people were stunned at what you'd just done, it gave you time to plead your case, whatever it may be.

Psychological warfare was magical. Not that this was some sort of conflict. Quite the contrary in fact. I came in peace, with a prospect to party. And I brought it to the Hellions – the people I figured would be the most onboard with what I had to say.

"So let me get this straight," Julian said after hearing me out,"You guys want to throw some kind of end-of-exams bash?"

Eddie nodded, still very enthusiastic with the idea, "As many people as we can get in on this thing. If it's even half as good as we want it to be, it's gonna be amazing."

We had talked a lot during the several minutes it had taken us to actually find the Hellions. A lot of ideas had come up, which had only stoked the fires of what had been a spark of a plan.

The silver-skinned girl sat on a picnic table while she'd been listening, "So why come to us?" He asked.

I looked around at the six teenagers in front of me, Eddie, and Wolf, with a vexed look on my face, "Who else would I come to? It's not like there's a whole bunch of people out there that would help," Once I said that, a few of the Hellions looked between each other without saying anything, "What?"

Brian was the first one to speak up, "Dude, you guys don't realize you're on the come-up around here?" He said.

"Huh?" Was all I could think of as a reply. I did not realize that, "What are you talking about?"

"Yeah," Santo chimed in, the large, rocky boy co-signing on his teammate's comment, "All of the shit you guys have been in this semester, you've got some serious cred now. You're almost as cool as we are."

That was news. I certainly hadn't noticed it. Looking over at Eddie and seeing him shrug, I could tell he hadn't either. If anything had changed in regards to our popularity, it hadn't manifested itself in front of our eyes just yet.

Julian took the offer I had presented and ran with it, "Marcher's got a point. Who else knows how to get something like this together but us?"

Santo laughed and held up a fist for Julian to bump, "That's fair. If you wanna get the party started, why not call the Hellions? I like that. I'm in."

The Muslim member of the red squad, Sooraya, raised her hand in order to bow out of the proceedings, "I will choose to sit this out. I do not feel comfortable with the idea of a party."

From interactions with Sooraya, she was a nice girl, but she absolutely didn't fit in with the Hellions. Not that this was a bad thing. There had to be a more levelheaded member of the team to keep things morally straight. As much as possible with a team full of troublemakers at least.

Eddie agreed easily, "That's fair. In that case, don't worry about it. Me and Bel never brought it up to you in particular," There was no need to get anyone in trouble if they didn't want to be involved. There would likely be enough to go around anyway.

From the smile on her face, Cessily was more than willing to take part, "It sounds fun to me. Someone needs to bring up spirits around here. It's too gloomy to be this close to the end of the semester."

Julian addressed the quietest member of his team, the emo-looking guy that Cessily kept closest to, "How about you, Kevin? You want in on this, or are you gonna sit it out?" The leader asked.

Kevin shrank back when all eyes were on him, "Well, it probably _will_ be more fun than than the dance," He didn't sound like he was into it. Not the social type, for whatever reason. Hopefully that would change once we got going.

Eddie snapped his fingers and threw his arms up in celebration, "Yes! Plus, look at it this way. For those hopeless cases like myself, it might be a good chance to find an actual date for that thing."

Once again, Eddie gave me plenty of ammunition to run my mouth, "We're doing the entire school a public service, really," I said, with a confidence that belied the crap that spewed forth from my lips, "Being heroes isn't always about beating up bad guys. Sometimes, it's about helping the little guy, day-to-day."

Even Julian found himself swept up and falling in with our line of B.S., "Of course. And as the upstanding citizens that the Hellions are, there's no way we can let the Paladins do something like that by themselves."

Fantastic. My recruitment drive wound up bearing fruit.

XxX

Putting parties together involved a lot of labor. It wasn't just making sure people showed up. There was a matter of making sure there was stuff to do once people showed up, otherwise they wouldn't be staying for long. Thus, a number of us ventured into Salem Center in order to procure the goods we needed.

Shopping was a complete pain, but it wasn't so bad when you were doing it with other people.

"Do we have enough chips?" Santo asked as we left the store. He easily carried twelve full bags of goodies, looped in one finger of one hand, "This doesn't feel like enough."

Hisako had the least amount of bags to carry, mostly because she had the list that we were going by and keeping track of the money, "Santo, we've got like ten whole giant bags. Unless a bunch of people decide to binge on chips and only chips, I think we're good."

The big rock boy didn't relent on the point he was trying to make, "No, I mean do we have enough _kinds_ of chips? I'm just saying, we might need more than the big three," Which of course was original, barbecue, and sour cream  & onion.

"Honestly, we probably could have skipped the sour cream & onion," I said, "I don't see a whole lot of people planning on getting close to anyone eating a lot of those."

Hisako added as we left the supermarket parking lot and walked down the street to our next destination, "We've got lots of other snacks too. There should be a little something here for everybody."

Once the next store we were after came into sight, I got everyone's attention, "Alright. We've got all of the conventional stuff, plus sodas and water for the straight-laced crowd. Now it's time to get the fun stuff."

Julian passed his bags off to Santo with a big grin on his face, "I'm on it," He said, "Anyone who wants anything special when I head in, fork over the cash now. I'm not covering you."

I went into my pocket to fish out my wallet for two $20 bills, "Yeah, get me a bottle of 44˚ North. Check the vodka aisle, playa," No one else had any personal requests. No cheapskates were going to be drinking any of my supply up. They could get their own, "...I'm not sharing either. That's mine, all night long."

"Stingy," Santo said before turning to Julian, "How exactly are we going to get the beer? And how are we getting it all out of here?"

Julian, to his credit, didn't take the easy route of just calling his friend dumb. That was low-hanging fruit, and it wouldn't help anyone, "Okay, Santo... even if I _didn't_ have TK, you can carry a truck over your head. Three kegs is nothing."

Case in point, he was at the moment carrying 4/5ths of our bags by himself on two fingers.

"Oh!" Santo said, chuckling to himself. "Heh, sometimes I forget I'm a mutant."

"How?" I asked, not that it would do any good, "Nevermind. Make with the ID, rich boy. Let's see what we're working with," Julian proudly pulled out his fake. It all seemed to check out to me. Nothing too suspicious, and it didn't have his real name on it. Nothing that would warrant a second glance as long as he played it cool, "...Why are you 22 on this ID?"

"To help throw people off the scent, Marcher," Julian explained as though it were elementary, "This is a professional-grade fake. The people I got this from know all the tricks. It hasn't failed me yet."

Hisako looked at Julian and his fake ID strangely, "How much do you do this? And what people?"

Bah, details. We didn't need all of that right now. What we needed was alcohol, in large amounts, "Hey, hey, hey. Let's just go for it," I said, "We're not cashing a check or anything. We're just flashing the ID so the guy can punch in the birthdate. No big deal. You've got this, Jules."

Julian tucked the ID away and headed off to the ABC Store, "Right. Don't wait up. I'll be back in a bit. And don't call me Jules, assface."

"Sure thing, Julia," I felt a slap come to the back of my head from a disembodied force, "Ow! Fucker!" I aimed my pointer finger at him, about to take a shot in broad daylight before letting it go. There were more important things afoot, "Well, that's handled."

Hisako looked over at me, giving me a mild stinkeye, "Is it? Is it really handled? Because I can't help but feel like you're missing a few things."

I couldn't imagine what I'd missed so far. I had Cessily and Brian doing the legwork to spread the word about what was going to happen that Saturday. Kevin and Eddie were procuring the sound system and the entertainment. Ruth went with Laura and Saberwolf, damned good scouts that they were, to find a place for us to hold the party according to the parameters I had given them. Julian had the beer covered, with me, Santo, and Hisako there in case anything went wrong.

She palmed her forehead and stashed away the list, "How are we going to keep the whole staff from figuring out something is happening, genius? All of the upperclassmen are going to be suspiciously absent that night, and no one's going to be looking for us?"

I made a fake expression of fear, "What are they going to do, use Cerebra to track us all down?" Actually, there was a real chance that that would happen, "Oh, man. They'll actually use Cerebra to track us all down."

Hisako made a little gesture as if to emphasize what she was saying, "Right?"

Santo scoffed, "So what if they do? There's gonna be a hundred kids there. Maybe more. They can't punish all of us."

Hisako rolled her eyes, "They can single out all of the kids in squads. You know, because we should know better, be a good example, all of that."

Santo suddenly stood up straight from his previously lazy, hunched posture, "I didn't think about that. What the hell, Marcher? So we're busted before we start?"

Oh no, they weren't both about to double team a freak out on me, "No! Shut up. Let me think," I said, trying to buy myself a few seconds to come up with something decent, "...We need a diversion."

"Duh. What kind of diversion?" Hisako asked.

Something good, for sure. It would have to be, "We only really need something for Mister Summers and Miss Frost. Dr. McCoy's always spending his days off doing brain guy shit, so he's covered. Mister Logan heads into town to get super-sloppy on the weekends-."

Santo chimed in, "Why do you know any of that?"

I made my answer quick, "Because I don't sleep, so I see everything. Can I finish please? Guys? Please? _Please_?" The more I was allowed to talk without a filter or without being interrupted, the more the ideas flowed. Both Hisako and Santo went silent for my benefit, "Thank you. So anyway, that leaves the only ones that can bust us without trying being those two."

Mister Summers was a goddamn workaholic. He was always ready, always around the Institute, and he would be quick to notice if something was amiss, even if curfew much less strict for weekend days. Miss Frost had a lot of the same qualities, only she was more likely to leave for New York City or some other big city for fun if she had something that she wanted to do. Getting her to leave would be much easier than getting Mister Summers to.

Wait. She might have been the key to getting him to go too.

I pulled out my phone and quickly began using the internet, my best friend, to get the information I needed, "Hold on. Hold on. This might halfway solve itself," I said. It took a moment, but I found exactly what I needed, "Yes! This is gonna be a layup!"

"What?" Hisako asked, moving over to my side to see what I was seeing. Once she did, her eyes lit up, "Oh. Oh, that's good. That might actually work. How did you even think of that?"

Santo muscled in behind us to get a look over our heads, "Hey, I want to know what's going on too! I can't see, you guys!" I tilted the phone up to give him a decent look as well, "Frost's birthday. Ohhh. I get it."

"Yesssss..." Hisako cheered, squirming in place. It was incredibly hypnotic to watch, "It's on Saturday. Why is it that we only get lucky with useless stuff like this?"

I let out a laugh and put my phone away, "I wouldn't call it completely useless, seeing as how if this didn't break our way we'd be getting the book thrown at our asses."

XxX

I wasn't accustomed to utilizing underhanded means to get an advantage, but damn it, you had to take what you could get when it was given to you. When life pitched a slow, fat ball right across the plate, it was your right as an intrepid young contributing member of society to knock it clear out of the park.

I saw Mister Summers more than I used to after... what had happened on the Breakworld. Without a senior X-Man to lead us, it was up to me to requisition things for training and whatnot. It was far too late in the year to get any kind of replacement, so we were on our own until fall semester started up. Not that it would have mattered anyway. It was way too soon for anyone to replace Miss Pryde without carrying the weight that came with it. None of us were ready for it.

Bah. Too depressing. The point was, I had lots of face time with the man, so that put me in prime position to do my job of planting a certain little seed in his head. It had been suggested that I let Ruth do it, but no. It was too risky. The man had a track record of plowing lady telepaths like it was his job. There was no way she was going to be able to get in and out of his head without killing our plans.

That left it up to someone with the right kind of ability to run their mouth, who wouldn't be out of place talking to him about random stuff. i.e. me.

He caught me pacing around outside of his office one afternoon once exams for that day had let out. It was usually the time I came by to ask him something or drop something off, "Bellamy," He said upon seeing me, "Is there something I can help you with? Exams are going okay, aren't they?"

"I guess they're going okay," I said, "I was just around, and I wanted to get a moment of your time to ask you something quick."

Mister Summers nodded his agreement and unlocked the door to his office, letting me inside, "Sure. That's what my office hours are here for," He said before giving me a deadpan look, "There's nothing happening that'll blow up the school again, is there?" He said dryly.

I waved off the completely legitimate concern, "No. Not this time. I've got a question. It's not really a life-or-death thing. More personal. And if you don't want to answer, that's cool. It's just you're the only person I can think of to legit ask, and-."

He held up a hand to stop me from rambling on, "Go ahead, it's fine. I should probably think about bringing on a guidance counselor or something for the students here anyway. What do you need?"

I sat down in front of his desk as he got comfortable behind it to hear me out, "Well, I was wondering what the rule for birthdays is with girls," He raised an eyebrow underneath his visor in interest and gestured for me to continue, "I mean for me, I hate my birthday. But I'm a miserable jerk, so I ignore everything that goes for me when it comes to normal people."

"Whose birthday did you miss?" Mister Summers offered, a wry smile on his face.

I put on a dejected face to try and sell my story, "I'm pretty sure I missed Hisako's a few weeks ago. It'd explain why she's been pissy with me lately," Not entirely a lie. Hisako _had_ been pissy with me lately... on and off, but that was how we always were. Her birthday wasn't actually until November, "So I'm figuring there's some kind of rule there, even if you're not dating the girl."

It seemed like Mister Summers was actually happy to give some advice that didn't involve anyone fighting or getting hurt, "Now this is just from me, so your mileage may vary," He said, "It matters more the closer you are to a girl. The more important she is to you and you are to her, the more likely it is you should go out of your way to get her something or do something nice for her."

That was actually decent advice, "Shit. Well, at least I know for next time. Not like I can do anything about it now without making it worse. I guess I'll just say sorry somehow later," Now here was the important part. This one had to hit deep, yet subtly, "Man, why do you always have everything in control? I bet you've got something baller planned for Miss Frost this weekend."

Mister Summers' entire face and posture froze up, "What?"

I gave him a weird look, as if to wonder why he needed me to tell him what I was saying, "Miss Frost's birthday. It's Saturday," He tried to hide it, but I caught the wince, "...Y-You didn't know that?"

It took everything I had to keep a straight face. I couldn't crack now. Things were going too well to let anything suspicious slip.

Mister Summers didn't admit to not remembering, instead trying to move things back onto me, "Why do _you_ know that?"

The internet. More specifically, the directory open to all students. Not that I said that, "Hellions," I said with a shrug, enough confidence behind it to sound like the truth, "...My bad. I didn't mean to freak you out."

Yes I did. I totally did. Dance for me, puppet X-Man. Do Bellamy's bidding and get your ass out of town so I can throw a mutant rager.

"I'm not freaked out, Bellamy, don't worry," He said before chuckling nervously, probably feeling like he'd just dodged a bullet, "Though I probably owe you one for jogging my memory. I've still got a few days to come up with something good before the weekend."

"Oh, no problem! Glad I could help. I was the one who came for help myself," And he gave it to me, or he would when he took her out for a night on the town in the big city Saturday. A woman like Miss Frost would want something splendorous, "I've pissed off Miss Frost enough times to not wish that on anyone unless I really don't like 'em."

With my problem solved, I said goodbye and left the room, keeping my wits about me until I was back in the comfortable confines of the student dorm area. In the common area, I found Eddie sitting around watching TV with Ruth, who was doing the same, leaning against a sleeping Saberwolf on the floor.

I cleared my throat, getting the attention of my friends.

Eddie set his magazine aside and jumped up with a nervous expression, "Did it work?" I nodded, and a sigh of relief came from him before he pointed at me, "For the love of God, someone 'too sweet' that man!"

He flew over and did it himself. When Ruth registered my presence, she got up and jumped on my back. She weighed next to nothing to me, but for the sake of messing around, I let her drag me down to the ground so we could grapple.

Eddie ignored the two of us goofing off in exchange for rubbing his hands together, daydreaming of what we had ahead of us, "This is gonna be so awesome. Would you two stop rolling around already? Celebrate with me, damn it!"

I was a bit busy. Ruth was still behind me, legs wrapped around my waist trying to sink in a choke. I could peel her arms away from my throat with one hand, "Damn it, girl, you cannot fight me. You're miniature," She didn't answer me, instead focusing on trying to playfully establish dominion over yours truly.

Ruth was getting to be okay at martial arts. She was better at grappling than striking. Unfortunately, I trained every damn night to offset insomnia-caused boredom.

I trapped Ruth's ankle between my legs and reached back to pull off her shoe and tickle her bare foot. She laughed out loud until she let go and surrendered. Not exactly a recognized hold in any formal martial art, but it was good enough to get her to give up, begging me to stop the entire time, "She gives up, yes! Stop, please! Bellamy!"

"And that's how you do that," I got up, picked Ruth up off of the ground under one arm, kicking and fighting the whole way, and dropped her on the couch, "Would you be good already?" I sat down next to her and she quickly squirmed behind me. This time, I let her sink in a rear naked choke. She had the good grace to not squeeze down on it, "We're good to go."

Eddie floated above our heads lazily, "Seeing as how Blindfold here hasn't let us onto any visions of shit going sideways, I'd say so," He knocked on the wooden table for good measure, "By the way, they found a spot that works. Saberwolf took me there after my exams, and it is so choice."

I still couldn't believe Ruth of all people managed to get Laura and Saberwolf to help her scout party locations. Well, I could believe she could get Saberwolf. He was a complete softy for her, but Laura seemed way too antisocial to help out.

I hummed and gave her a pat on the thigh, "Huh. Good for you, Ruthie," That was the moment she squeezed down, "*hack* It's supposed to cut off circulation, not air!"

Despite Eddie being in good position to make it stop, he clearly took pleasure in watching this happen, "Then why is it called a choke?"

I fell over on the couch and glared up at my wingman as I fought the psychic girl on my back for oxygen, "Hate you guys..."

* * *

 **Alright guys. That's it for this chapter. You see? It ain't always about the action and the violence. I've got to throw some dumb day-to-day stuff in there too. Remember, this is all in a bid to test and amuse myself. I just hope other people enjoy the byproduct.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	18. People Person

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, or any other property of Marvel. I have super-breaking-my-hands powers. The power to break my hands on command… or by accident. It's notable, but it's not really the most convenient superpower, to be honest.

 **Chapter 18: People Person**

* * *

Flying exam day, the last trial for one of my elective courses. Everything about it seemed very familiar. It was lot like the Field Day test, right up to how hard I crushed it. I could have flown the plane we used with my eyes closed.

I hopped off with a pep to my step that a lot of the others that had gone before me hadn't had. Mr. Wagner got off of the plane behind me, making his last marks on the sheet he was using to grade me, "Zat is very good flying, Bellamy," He commented as we walked back to the rest of the class in the hangar.

I was so ready to be done with this class. It was the final test I had to take before I was finished for the semester, "Tell me I got an A."

Mr. Wagner laughed, but gave me the answer I wanted to hear, "You got an A."

It really wasn't fair to grade me to the same standard as everyone else. I broke the curriculum. Our teacher wasn't expecting to teach a student who would wind up being an ace by the end of the semester.

"BAM!" I shouted out loud, firing two fists full of light high into the air, "Thank you, sir!"

I had to take my victories where I could get them. Things weren't great. I still missed Miss Pryde, and we weren't any closer to finding a way to get her back, but we were assured that she was still alive, so there was a chance we could get her back someday. You had to try and put a positive spin on these kinds of things.

Once the test was done, I headed out of the hangar and for the elevator that took people back to the upper levels of the Institute.

My tests were finished. It was like a weight being lifted from my shoulders. Now I didn't need to worry about anything academic and could finish getting my summer plans set up. I was to head home for a few weeks to spend time with my family, but I'd be back at the Institute soon enough.

That was for later, though. Now, I had a get-together to troubleshoot for. I was really excited to get things underway. All I had to do was make sure the year-end party I had a hand in went off as well as possible, and that would be it.

Once I dropped off a stack of goddamn paperwork to Mister Summers, every responsibility I had to the school was fulfilled. I could then fully focus on debauchery.

When I got to the office though, I found some classmates of mine had gotten an early start on their debauchery.

I opened the door to find Noriko and David from the New Mutants behind the desk, breaking into Mister Summer's computer. Their stealth left a lot to be desired. Then again, Nori walked around with electric-blue hair. Subtlety definitely wasn't her thing.

I didn't say anything at first. I shut the door behind me, and waited. Nothing. Eventually I ruffled my papers. Both of them looked up like spooked deer in a forest. I tried not to laugh and keep a straight face. It was hard, "What the hell are you two doing here?"

David barely reacted, stoic, intelligent fucker. Noriko was the easiest to rattle – more expressive, "Bellamy. What are you doing here?" She inquired, trying and failing to play it cool.

I held up my forms and wiggled them in the air, "I have to drop off whatever counts for my year-end evaluations for the Paladins," I honestly scowled at that. What kind of psychopath made a kid taking his exams do extra paperwork? "What the hell are you guys doing? Did you break in?"

Neither of them denied it. Both Nori and David looked at each other before the latter spoke up, "Are you gonna tell?"

I raised an eyebrow in return, "That depends. Are you trying to take over the school or kill somebody on campus? Because I've walked that far in the snow before, and I'm pretty sure this time my word will actually mean something."

At least it better have been. My word should have been bond at this point.

"We're trying to see which team is next up to be X-Men," David explained, trying to prove his intentions weren't nefarious.

I didn't get it. To me, it seemed like high risk for little gain, "What does it matter?" I asked.

Noriko seemed stunned that I didn't care, "What does it matter? What are we doing all of this training for if some of us don't wind up being X-Men somehow? Talk about a waste of time."

I rolled my eyes, "I thought the teams were put together to make sure everybody knows how to fight."

"What do you think the fighting's going to be used for?" Nori shot back to make her own point, "Expecting a lot of attacks on the school?"

Had she checked out during the one time that an attack had happened on a school-wide scale this semester? "Yes. This place has been rebuilt how many times already?" Other places didn't have to deal with things like that, and definitely not as frequently as we did, "Our normal is not everyone else in America's normal."

David interjected himself in the middle of our debate before we wasted more of their window of opportunity, "Look, I don't want to be on the X-Men. I just want to make sure no one in charge is having any ideas," He said, without looking up from Mister Summers' desktop, "My dream is to go to Harvard, not to be some kind of superhero."

Fair enough. But he seemed to like being half in charge of his team with Sofia, "Well, nobody says you can't do both," I said with a shrug, "Then again, that's easy for me to say, seeing as how I never have to sleep. How'd you even get in there, anyway?"

David looked over at me from the screen and tapped at his temple. Oh, his power to absorb knowledge and skills of anyone in range. All he would have had to do was stand by Mister Summers and somehow record however he needed to get in while he had the info muddling around in his head.

Noriko grinned and moved behind me to try and push me with her gauntlets to take a look at the computer, "Come on, Bellamy. Aren't you curious about what they think about you? You're telling me you don't want to take a look?" She was not strong enough to budge me against my will, and realized that quickly enough.

"Nope. I'm good," I said after she'd given up. I walked over to the desk and dropping my folder of papers down without going behind it to take a look. I had dealt with enough legit danger. I didn't need to see what was written about me on a computer to know that I could handle some stuff if need be, "Just hurry up. I'm not vouching for you if you get busted."

They did as I asked and dove into looking for what they were after. I kept watch for a moment out of common courtesy, seeing as how I would have been doing something against the rules soon enough myself. They seemed to be reading something or another, scrolling down and whispering amongst themselves.

"No way."

"What!? You've got to be kidding me!"

I didn't budge from my spot by the door, even when the New Mutant members seemed to be in disbelief about something. Whatever it was, it wasn't my business. At least, it wasn't until Noriko glared at me, "What? What did I do?"

She took a moment to size me up before telling me what he problem was, "How the hell are _you_ a reserve X-Man?"

That was finally enough to bring me over, "What did you just say to me? I'm a what now?" We had reserve X-Men? This was news to me.

David turned the computer monitor my way to take a look. Despite what I'd said, they had gone ahead and looked up the briefing on me anyway. Right there, not far underneath standard things like my name, birthday, blood type, and all of that basic stuff was a recommendation that I should be considered as a reserve in case of emergency.

No one had told me about this. So it must have been in case of _serious_ emergency. Like, an absolutely last resort, last line of defense kind of emergency.

So, you know... I was definitely going to get called in at some point in the near future. That was just how things worked around there.

"Want to see the synopsis?" David asked, snapping me out of my trance.

"No," I immediately responded, for all that my opinion on this meant.

"'Bellamy is well-suited to stressful situations; a very adaptable sort. When pressed, he is quickly able to prioritize, make decisions, and act instead of sit and wait. He has a take-charge attitude, which many of his peers respond well to. His combat abilities also do a lot to inspire confidence as well.'" David read out for my benefit, "'He is one of the most battle-adept students at the school, aside from a few special cases. In a very short time under our watch, he has excelled in several incidents where he should have been in over his head."

Noriko's nose scrunched up at the last part of that statement, "What incidents?"

There were plenty that could get thrown in there, so I listed them off on my fingers, "In chronological order, I'm guessing; getting kidnapped by the Reavers, the whole Field Day thing, and... Breakworld," I really didn't want to talk about that last one. Hisako and I barely told our teams about that hell of a mess, let alone anyone else.

She and I didn't always have the best relationship, but we were on the same page when it came to Breakworld. It wasn't some cool thing to talk about for bragging rights. We lost our teacher. We saw some terrible shit. We almost died a bunch of times, violently. Ten years down the line, it wasn't going to be some cool story we told during reunions.

Anyone that found out about it and started grilling us for details without taking no for an answer... well, a good tongue-lashing was the best outcome that they could expect.

"Yeah, we should get out of here," I said, waving the whole thing off. David and Noriko had seen all they needed to and quickly signed off before following me out. We hustled for a bit before we finally felt safe enough to slow down, "So you guys are gonna be at the 'you-know-what', right?"

Noriko seemed conflicted. It was a good chance to cut loose after a stressful time, but some of the people behind it rubbed her the wrong way, "It's being co-promoted by the Hellions. Gross. I can't believe you're hanging out with them."

Whenever certain members of both teams were in the same place, it was awful for anyone else to be around. In our spare time one day for shits and giggles, Ruth and I had worked out the worst combinations of Hellions versus New Mutants. Hisako and Eddie had overheard us and jumped in.

We wound up drawing a flowchart. It was pretty sweet, even though we had to destroy it afterwards so we didn't catch any heat from either team.

In no particular order of grudge: Julian and Noriko. Julian and David. Julian and Josh (notice a pattern here?). The kind-of-goth kid Kevin and Josh. Cessily and the quiet blonde girl Laurie. Sooraya and Noriko (entirely one-sided on the latter's side, admittedly).

High school sucks.

I wasn't about to be caught trying to defend Julian... mostly because it was appropriate for most people to have a problem with him, "They're all not so bad. It's 90 percent Julian, and as long as you hold your own, he's fine. Why do you guys have so much beef anyway?"

David let out a humorless laugh, "Where should I start?" He said, "Most of it _is_ Julian. He's pulled us into a lot of trouble. He turned one of our own teammates against us to join his team instead. He tried to turn the whole school against Josh for being a Reaver in the past-."

Noriko picked up for David at that point, "-He treated me like shit when I first tried to come here because I was homeless. He can get away with almost anything because he's Headmistress Frost's favorite. Entitled, rich, fuckboy." She let out a grunt of frustration, "How can you stand the guy? He pulled his crap on you when you first got here."

True. But if anyone wanted to start a fire with me, I was more than happy to throw gasoline all over it. I liked certain amounts of conflict. It kept life interesting. The only thing Julian _really_ could have done to set me off fortunately never came to pass. He had never messed with one of my teammates. For instance, had he ever started picking on Ruth -especially Ruth- it would have turned into something out of Gangs of New York.

"I can take care of myself," I believe I had made that abundantly clear to anyone who cared by now, "...Hey, have you ever actually beaten them at anything? Like, any Field Days? Head-to-head challenges? Anything?"

David scowled at the thought of being bested constantly by the Hellions, "No. and thanks for reminding me."

For a guy that didn't want to be on the X-Men, he was seemingly very salty over the team exercise losses, "Well, since you can't ever seem to fight him to get it out of the way like I did, you've gotta do it that way," I explained, "The more you beat him and prove you can do it, the more he'll fuck off."

"It can't be that easy."

Admittedly, no. There was more to it than that, "Well, I did save his ass once before too," I added, probably as an important aside, "All of you have your little conflicts and whatever. Blah," I spat to show how I felt about high school drama, "But Santo, Brian, and the others for the most part go as Julian does. If he chills out, they will too."

At least I thought so. This was not an exact science. I was no expert on people. I could only go off of my own experiences, and sound confident while doing it.

"He's probably pulling Sofia's pigtails too," David pointed out, "He's got a thing for her. But she won't date him even though she has one for him too."

"Everybody can see it too," Nori added with a sigh, "No accounting for taste in her case, I suppose."

"Oh yeah. That was probably why he started shit with me," I said, remembering those early days when I didn't know anything about the school, "He thought I was trying to sidle up to her when I first showed up," Which was crazy, as I barely knew the girl. Even now, there were plenty of people I knew better than her.

"And now you're after Pixie, right?" Nori asked, giving me a few nudges with her elbow, "Didn't take you for the type to like the sweet ones."

I rolled my eyes, but humored her regardless, "Yeah? What's it to you?"

"Nothing, nothing," Noriko waved her hands defensively, "I just think it's cute to think about you two hanging out."

"Uh-huh," I could think of many words to describe me and the things I got involved in. Cute was not one of them, "So... party? Everybody's going. Stop by, say hi to some folks, maybe grab a drink. You know, unwind a bit. Exams are over, baby."

David was thinking about it. I was about to give him a little extra nudge, when he caved, "Where is it?"

I could feel how big my smile was. Winning, in its various and sundry forms, was always good, "Exact details are need-to-know. No one's finding out until the night of, so no one blows what's left of our cover. I'll make sure to text you," I lifted my hand for the 'too sweet', but no one reciprocated, "...No? Okay."

XxX

The night of the party eventually came, and my plan had worked. Mister Summers had scrambled to get something together away from the school for he and Miss Frost to blow off some steam. When we caught wind that our number one guards would be away, we sent out the messages for the exact time and place.

People started showing up early. Lots of people started filing in once the actual time rolled around. I was giddy.

Saberwolf and Laura had contributed to the festivities by finding us a choice place. Salem Center had lots of nice property, and they were able to find a lakeside house for sale that was fully furnished from the current owners looking to sell, with running electricity and everything.

'But Bellamy,' you're probably asking, 'Won't someone call the police when they see a bunch of mutant kids getting strange in the empty house next door?'

To which I would reply, 'Yes. But we're four tree-covered acres from the nearest road, and/or would-be neighbors. Unless we set the woods on fire, there's really nothing we can do to attract any attention.'

I stood at the door, greeting people on the way in, thanking them for coming and letting them know what we had available. It was really boring, and it was here that I learned that while I didn't know a whole lot of people, a whole lot of people knew me. As in, people who I'd never had a class with, or anything, they knew my name. It stunned me. At first, I'd figured the Hellions' name recognition would have brought the people in. Apparently the Paladins had some prestige as well.

Some of my other friends had been running around, making sure everything was set up before the party started in earnest. Eddie was one of them, and hadn't gotten the chance to meet up with me when I'd gotten there. When we finally came across each other, he stared me down and seemed disappointed.

Eddie grabbed at my clothes and shook his head, "What the fuck is this? You look like you're about to hop on a stage and sing to some girls," As if that was a bad thing.

I had on some dark colored jeans and a white t-shirt underneath an open navy button-up shirt, hat firmly on my head. I thought I looked good, all things considered. On the other hand, he had on some shorts and a tank top. Skinny S.O.B… he couldn't talk shit about me.

"You look like you're about to go to goddamn pool party," I shot back. I'd taken some time to try and look good for this thing. I cleaned up well for a high school junior, if I did say so myself.

Eddie jerked his thumb in the direction of the rear of the house, "We've got the lake out back," He argued. A fair enough point, I admit, "Sun's out, guns out, Bel. You should know this. Your arms are bigger than mine."

There was a time and a place for everything. And while there was a lake, this wasn't a beach party. We were still in upstate New York, "I am the host, fool. It's my job to present myself as casual, welcoming… but a symbol of taste and-," In the background, something caught my eye, "Hey! You kick in if you want to touch the kegs! 5 bucks to drink all night! Otherwise, B.Y.O.B!" I yelled at a sophomore trying to get over with our refreshments. When he skittered off, I turned back to Eddie and shook my head, "I swear, we try throw everyone's raggedy-ass a party, and they don't even care. Where is everybody else?"

Eddie had been there even before I had, making sure everything went right, "Hisako and Blindfold are coming later with the New Mutants," He said, having kept track of our merry crew, "Julian, Santo, and Brian are helping set up. The emo kid is around here somewhere. Cessily isn't coming until later, and Sooraya isn't coming at all, as far as I know."

I thought about the out-of-place member of the Hellions. I couldn't see her walking around in the kind of place we were going to be in later, "Yeah… I guess if you're not the party type, there's better things to do than sit around and watch a bunch of drunk toddlers all night."

I felt a little bad. She was a very respectful, religious type, and she'd always been nice to me.

Eddie seemed to share my sentiment, "It's kind of a shame. I've got a feeling she's really pretty under that burka," He mused, before giving up the thought. Anything further would have been marginalizing her religion, "I'm not gonna try to strong-arm anybody into cutting loose though."

"Sooraya does not wear a burka. It is a niqab."

Both Eddie and I leapt twelve feet away when we realized Laura had been standing six inches from us for what had probably been a decent while. She kept her normal expression, but there was a lift to her brow, as if to say we were idiots.

"How long have you been there?" I asked first, trying to get my heart-rate down. From where she'd been standing, she had been right out of my peripheral vision.

"Since you yelled at that student," Laura specified, her brow furrowing as she tried to figure out just what our problem was.

Eddie levitated in place, never setting himself back down after jumping, "Holy-! I think I just shat out my heart."

There was an honest expression of confusion that I could see on her face, "You know, I'm pretty sure she's not even trying to sneak up us either. I told you before, you've gotta quit doing that," She didn't really do anything out of any sense of malice. Not since I'd met her, at least, "What's up, Laura?"

She shrugged her shoulders, hands shoved in the pockets of her little black jacket, "You told me it would be good to give this a try, but I do not know what I should do to interact during this... party," She said, "What do you think I should do?"

"Whatever you want," The way she furrowed her brow told me that this wasn't good enough advice, "I mean, we've got food, drinks. There's lots of people who are going to be here, so you can find someone you like talking to or want to be around," She just stared at me blankly after that one, "...Right. Well, you can take the party to the lake like the flying ginger will here, or you don't really have to do anything."

"Yeah," Eddie stepped in, realizing that I was struggling to explain things, "There's a big-ass TV over there, we'll have some stuff hooked up, so you can chill out and watch TV. Just relax. What do you even do for fun?" He asked, trying to reach for a straw to grasp at. Laura didn't answer him for an oddly long time, "...Oh boy. Bel?"

Way to pass the buck back to me, buddy. I put a hand on Laura's shoulder, "If you don't want to do any of that, it's fine. If you need anything, come find me," I was supposed to be playing host after all, "Hell, if you want to leave, you can. Just make sure you tell me first."

Eddie and Hisako would tell me when they were leaving. Eddie would probably stay until the end. Ruth would probably stick close to all of us all night long and leave when Hisako did. Laura was the most likely to lone wolf it, and wander off without saying a word. I didn't want to be up all night after the party wondering where a member of my team was.

Laura agreed easily enough. It made me question if she really wanted to be there, or if she was just there because I had suggested she do it. Either way, she was there, and she was my friend. I wanted her to be comfortable with where she was and what she was doing.

"Come on," I said, gesturing with my head for Laura to follow me, "We've got to order a metric fuck-ton of pizzas for this thing."

"A fuck-ton is not a unit of measurement, Bellamy."

"Pssht. It is tonight."

XxX

Music pumped in my ears and through my body as I threw back a quick shot of vodka in the kitchen and tucked the little glass back away in one of my pockets.

We'd really gotten started at 8. The party had been going for almost 2 hours, and things seemed to be well. I hadn't seen any drama yet. No one was fallout drunk yet. No property damage had occurred. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. All good things, and everything I could hope for.

When I looked out back, I found kids hanging out by the lake. Guys and girls in swim trunks and bikinis, playing around in the water. There were lights on by the water. If anything would get us busted, it would be that, but hopefully people weren't paying too much attention on the other side of the lake.

I maneuvered my way through the crowd of people inside of the house, careful not to get any drinks spilled on me as I moved through the premises to try and get outside. I had tried to take a headcount of people entering, but stopped when I'd gotten to sixty and kids kept coming. It was a moot point. From then on, I only paid attention to the people that I knew on a name basis who showed up.

A lot of people gave me pats on the back and other stuff when I tried to get through the crowd. A few almost made me stumble. I must note that I wasn't drunk. I'd only had two or three shots, far apart from each other since things got started. I had a pretty decent buzz going, but other than that, I felt fine.

Finding some of my other cohorts getting some air on the still crowded back patio, I threw my arms open wide in celebration, "I love it when a plan comes together!" I yelled, throwing my arms open wide, almost winging a porcupine kid in the face, "Whoops! Sorry, Max!"

"It's all good! Would have hurt you worse, dude!"

No doubt. Would have gotten an arm full of quills for it. Throwing out limbs half-hazardly in a room full of mutant kids. Not the best idea. Halfway bleeding out surrounded by others with music blasting would have been quite a way to end my night. It would have been strangely appropriate though

Sitting on the railing, watching over all of the proceedings, Hisako still played the pessimist, "This is going surprisingly well," She admitted, "...I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Her negativity towards anything that was my brain child was not well-received by Julian – the person that had put up most of the resources to make the party happen, "Oh, come on. Quit being dramatic. We did this right. Why does something have to go wrong?"

"Because we're involved," Hisako deadpanned, pointing her cup my way, "More specifically, because _he's_ involved. We don't have a good track record of things going smoothly."

"I should probably be more offended by that than I am," I felt the need to say, "But that's why I've gone to great lengths to make sure nothing goes wrong."

Hisako remained unimpressed, "You goaded two people into leaving-."

"Yeah, he did!" Santo interrupted from the background.

"-You convinced Julian to buy all of the beer."

"Yeah, he did!" This time, it was Julian who yelled before quietly pulling me aside, "I'm getting reimbursed for that, by the way, right? Not that I need it, but, you know."

I understood. Even if the guy came from money, making him pay for everything would have been a dick move, "We made everyone who showed up kick in some cash. Ruthie?" On cue, Ruth pulled out a wad of cash rolled together with a rubber band, which she then threw over to Julian, "See? We good?"

"Good enough," Julian said after flipping through the bills, counting it all up, "Yeah, this just about covers it. Way to go, Marcher," I gave him a thumbs-up in return, "Where's half my team?"

Santo was easy to find, and Brian wasn't too far away. It was the others he was looking out for. I gained some respect for him trying to keep track of all of his friends.

I started listing Hellions to help him out, "Sooraya didn't come, but you knew that already. That Kevin is off trying not to touch anybody, and I think Cess is staying close to him," Which seemed odd to me, unless it was for more than platonic reasons, "Does she have a thing for him, or something?"

"Yes," Julian said, sounding annoyed by the entire affair, "But he's dead-set on that girl from the New Mutants. What's her name? The blonde one."

There was a moment of compassion from Hisako, "And Cessily is stuck on him? That sucks."

"You're telling me," Julian grumbled, crossing his arms as a dark look came across his face, "That's just one of the problems we have with those losers."

Nope. Not tonight. I nipped that in the bud in a hurry, "Ah, no," I said to the telekinetic, "This whole thing wasn't put together so you could spend the whole night raging about something. Have a drink, grab a slice of pizza, and save that shit for tomorrow."

Despite the ease with which negative emotions came to him, a quirk of a smile found its way to Julian's face, "I'm pretty sure Santo ate the last of the pizza."

"What? We got like fifteen boxes!"

"You know how many big mutants are here? You should have doubled up."

"AAAAAHHH!" I rubbed my hat around on my head in exasperation. I had gotten like a slice when I'd brought the boxes in. Now all there was to eat were chips and stuff, if there were still any of those.

Hisako clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at me, "Don't ever go to a party planning to eat, Bel. That's day one stuff, mister expert."

Oh, what would she know about it? I rolled my eyes and went along my way to check in on more of the party. When I made it back inside, I felt a tug at my sleeve before Laura slipped into my line of sight. She had taken note from earlier to try and keep from scaring me.

She seemed fine, which was good. A scene hadn't been made, so that was also good. However, I was hardly prepared for what came out of her mouth, "Bellamy, someone asked me to have sex with them. What should I tell them?"

Of all the personal things to come out and ask me…

I squinted at her and then looked around the party as though I would actually spot who she was talking about. I did not, "They asked you to _what_?"

Laura didn't repeat herself, instead going into better detail for me, "They did not say it in those words. They tried to be subtle," She pointed up, "He asked if I would like to go upstairs. I could be wrong."

I sighed and rubbed the hat on my head, "No, you're not wrong," Which led to why she was asking _me_ about it. She had free will, didn't she? "Do you... do you want to have sex with anyone?" I asked.

I wasn't judging if she did. Absolutely not. After all, somebody had to get 'em some strange on a Saturday night, and more than a few obviously would. When I said the house was fully furnished, that meant bedrooms too. Poor, poor homeowners.

Laura didn't even have to think before she answered me, "No."

My response was just as instant, "So just say no," I said, as if it were obvious. It seemed easy enough to me, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and you don't need any other excuse."

Especially when it came to banging somebody. 'No' should have been the only thing you needed to say to move past it.

"But-."

I pointed right in her face to stop her excuse, "Ah-ah-ah. No. There are no 'buts' in this situation if you're trying to keep somebody out of yours," I said to her, "Why would you need to ask me that?"

Laura tensed and quickly clammed up, "I... do not wish to talk about this."

Whenever she shut herself up, it was really hard to get her to open back up. If I wanted to know more, and that was probably not the time or the place for that kind of talk, I wasn't going to get it then. I gave her a pat on the shoulder that I hoped was comforting, "Other than that, how are things going? Is this too much for you?"

"I am not unfamiliar with settings like this," She said.

That wasn't a yes or a no. Such a confusing girl, "Well if things get to be too much, Hisako and Ruth are out back and Eddie is-," It wasn't hard to catch sight of my friend floating above a crowd in the living room, leading the kids gathered there in... something, "-Making an ass of himself."

Saying that out loud was the magic word, as Eddie spotted me and Laura at the back of the room. He grinned widely and gestured for me to come to the front, closer to the music. I shook my head no. He wouldn't take no for an answer.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, he actually shouted over the music and got everyone's attention, "Ladies and gentlemen, the guy who thought this whole thing up is among us! Turn around and give it up for the solar-powered man with the plan himself! Bellamy Marcher!"

They did just that. All of a sudden, dozens of eyes were all on me. Laura was smarter than I was, and quickly made herself scarce the moment people started turning around, leaving me alone with the awkwardness. Damn her. And every single one of us would have done it to another one of us. What a Paladin thing to do. She really was one of us.

I waved and smiled, moving through the crowd until I could get to Eddie, yanking him down to the floor by his pant leg to throw an arm around his shoulder, "What in the blue hell are you doing?" I hissed at him. I could smell the alcohol on him, "How drunk are you?"

"Fairly," He admitted shamelessly, "Come on, dude. I'm your hype man! It's what I do!" He defended before reaching out to the sound system to turn the music down, "Bellamy says he wants to say a few words!" He said out loud to the people.

Cheers rang out through the house, while I tried to get out of it as gracefully as possible, "What? No the fuck I didn't," Eddie backed away, leaving me among the throng of mutantkind, "I-, you-, goddamn it, Eddie," I said the last part to myself.

I never felt like I was particularly good at this kind of thing. I could run my mouth just fine, but I did the best spewing my particular brand of bullshit to a handful of people. You know, a more intimate kind of setting. There were others way more gifted at addressing crowds.

Resigning myself to my fate and deciding to give Eddie a swift kick in the backside as soon as I got out of this, I fell back on my number one piece of advice for success: fake it 'til you make it.

I cleared my throat and stood up on a footrest nearby, "Hey. How's everybody doing tonight?"

Cheers and woos went up. Always an easy way to get a response. Of course, it would have been a sad state of affairs of I had asked that and everyone had stayed silent. It would have meant that the party sucked.

"I'm gonna make this quick so we can all get back to having a good time," I said, getting some people to raise their cups in the air, "I've only been here for, what, six months? Well, I just wanted to say, even though this place scares me to death sometimes... even though it's really rough around here from time to time... I've never had more fun anywhere else in my life."

"Yeah! Xavier's!"

I couldn't help but laugh at that ringing endorsement of our school, "A lot of that is all thanks to the Paladins. I love you guys," I could see Eddie float above the crowd, hands cupped to his mouth to heckle me from across the room, "Shut up, Eddie," Some laughs at my main man's expense, "But a lot of it is all of you. Every day I wake up, I have no idea what to expect from you nutcases, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So thanks for making this the craziest semester I've had at any school. Let's do it again in the fall."

There. I kept it short and sweet, and I got a pop at the end. That's public speaking 101, folks. Say what you need to say, and get out of there. Slap some hands on the way out, look around for who it was that pinched my butt in the crowd. That whole deal.

I found Laura in the kitchen, comparing two different flavored bags of chips, "Thanks for backing me up in there," I said sarcastically, reaching into one of the bags she held to get some for myself.

Laura was completely unapologetic about leaving me high and dry, "There was nothing I could actually do to help you," She had a point. That didn't make it any better.

"Have you ever heard of emotional support?" I asked, "That would be like me ditching you in the middle of this house full of weird people and leaving."

"You did do that," Little Miss Claws was quick to point out, correctly, I might add. I couldn't help but see the way she munched on her chips afterwards as kind of smug.

I had to take a moment to try and spin things in my favor again. Thankfully, I had chips to chew on to buy time, "…I mean like, _really_ leaving. And taking Eddie, Hisako, and Ruth with me," When Laura tensed up and stopped eating, I felt more bad than victorious, "…I wouldn't actually do that, you know. I'm not that much of a dick."

"No. There is a problem outside."

"How can you tell?" I asked, before I saw some people gathering by the windows and door at the back, "Forget I said anything."

Outside, wouldn't you know it, the full roster of the New Mutants were confronting the present members of the Hellions, down one member. I seemed to have made it just in time, as the more excitable members of both teams were moving in to get physical.

I fired a beam of light that cut into the ground between them, drawing a line, "Hey, all of you, cut it out!"

One night. They couldn't go one night without finding an excuse to get into it. I had asked everyone to be cool. Personally gone up to everyone and begged them to let go of whatever stupid grudge they had going on hold until tomorrow.

"You can do this any other time. You can't do it here. I won't let you. I don't care who started it. Whoever throws the first punch, I'm throwing the last."

"Stay out of this, Bel. This isn't about you."

"Yeah, it's time for these jerks to learn a lesson."

I couldn't make 11 people back down from a fight all by myself. I had no authority and I wasn't that badass. Even if Laura had my back, which she seemed to if her claws slowly sliding from between her knuckles was any indication, we would just make it worse.

I let the glow fade from my eyes and hands, putting up an arm to hold Laura back, "Fine. I will stay out of it. But the bouncer won't."

Noriko and Julian stopped glaring at each other to turn and look at me in confusion, "What bouncer?" The latter asked.

David was the first to spot him, "Uh... guys?" He said, pointing up to the darkened roof of the house, where my protection detail was lying in wait to prevent any problems from arising, "Bellamy, what is your wolf thing doing here?"

"Working security," Wolf spoke for himself, the sharp edges of his metal body gleaming in the light. The red eyes of his visor stared down at the riffraff, "Please disperse. This is meant to be a peaceful gathering," He requested as the chainsaw emerged from his back and started to softly rev.

A massive wolf robot created to hunt mutants was a better deterrent than one loudmouthed teenager who could throw light around. Expensive too. It took me guaranteeing him three brand new, pristine games of his choice to get him to help. And he wouldn't share them later either.

Jay Guthrie put his hands up and backed away. Good man, "I'm not in this," He said, using his wings to lift off of the ground.

All it took was one. One person bowing out. The one with the lowest threshold for it. Jay was the single most neutral member of his own team. Sooraya would have been the same for hers had she been around. After Jay sat out, the rest of the chain began to break.

First Laurie, because she really didn't have much of a taste for the inter-squad warfare. Then Josh, because they were dating. Then Kevin, because he had goo-goo eyes for Laurie. Then Cessily, because she empathized with Kevin.

Santo would get bored and wander off if too much time passed before fists started to fly. Julian would admonish him for a lack of focus, while at the same time losing his own. Sofia would blow the whole thing off once the tension broke (way to go, Santo). David would stay level and let cooler heads prevail, and he would encourage Noriko to do the same and calm down.

It worked like dominoes. Knock the first one down, the rest would follow.

As the two sides broke apart and made their way to separate areas of the party, I pulled Laura to the side and spoke softly to her, "I've got a new thing for you to do if you're bored," I said, "Stick around the New Mutants or the Hellions. Whichever ones you think you can stand the most. I still want you to enjoy yourself, but make sure nothing else kicks off. Call Wolf or me if it seems like something will."

I didn't think it would again that night – at least not with the entirety of both teams at once – but better safe than sorry.

Laura nodded and went to walk away before stopping. She fixed me with a gaze from her deep green eyes, scrutinizing me, "You lied to me."

I felt taken aback. I didn't lie any more than any other teenager, but I definitely kept from lying to my friends, "What? I never lied to you about anything," I argued.

Laura shook her head and told me her reason for saying so, "When you came to find me that evening in the cafeteria, you said that you were not good with people," She recalled the conversation we had back when she'd first been placed on the Paladins, "What you just did, you displayed an understanding of human nature and the personalities of the people around you. You knew exactly how they would react to everything that just happened. Someone who is bad with people could not have done that."

While I was always one to accept credit where credit was due, this time she was giving me too much for what I did, "Just because I understand people doesn't mean I'm good with them. I controlled the situation, Laura. I had to bring Wolf in to diffuse it," I walked past her toward the house and gave her a pat on the back, "If I were good with people, I would have been able to talk them down myself."

I appreciated her confidence in my abilities, but it was important that she had an accurate picture of what I could do. That she believed in me was encouraging. I just didn't want her to put me in a situation where I would let her or anyone else down.

But man, throwing a party was more work during the damn thing than I thought it would be. I walked around to the front and sat down on the stoop outside. There were still people around there, talking and taking a break from the smothering atmosphere inside. I could see the appeal to getting away for a bit.

A pair of arms wrapped around my shoulders. I caught the scent of a familiar girl as a weight rested on my back, "You really handled that well! At least by what I could see from the window," Megan's voice drifted into my ear, "Everyone was expecting a big fight."

" _I_ was expecting a big fight," I said with a sigh, leaning back against her, "I'm glad I did this once, so I know to never do it again."

Megan was the single most chipper girl I'd ever met, "Oh, come on! At least you did it! Nobody else can say they pulled off something like this lately," What a bright soul, "I can't believe you got all of this together!"

"Spread the word that you've got beer, food, and everyone's gonna be there, watch the people show up."

It must have been in my words just how spent I was from everything I'd been doing all day. Running all over town, keeping things in line, "You look kinda tired," She observed.

Mentally tired? Yes. I might have actually been able to get to sleep that night. I turned my head and put my forehead against Megan's cheek, "Hey. You wanna get away from here for a little while?"

She took me up on my offer and we started walking together. She stayed on the ground as we walked through the trees, close to the lake. The way the moonlight reflected off of the water and onto her almost made her glow.

I was caught staring and put on the spot, "You look really cute tonight, Pixie," I said, using her nickname, "Should have tried to stay boo'd up with you all night instead of trying to be responsible."

Megan tugged on my hat and gave me a big, white grin, "Pretty cheeky, aren't we? Hitting on me and taking me away from the party like that. Most guys are just asking girls to go upstairs instead!"

When she put it that way, it did sound like I was trying to get in her pants, "Oh, you know me. I'm just a big overachiever," She pulled my hat down over my eyes and I laughed, "I didn't even mean it like that. Not that I wouldn't be down if you were interested."

I was just playing around with her. We'd gotten pretty close, but I found it odd that she hesitated, "…You wouldn't have anywhere else to take us if we did leave," She said. There was an implication there, and it wasn't lost on me.

It made my eyes go wide. Was she serious? If there was even a chance, I had to probe the possibility, "I don't really have a roommate. Just Saberwolf, and he's here keeping watch over the place."

And were it to lead to me getting laid, I would lock his metal ass out for the night. Without a moment's hesitation. He would be fine. He could sleep in the common area. He would understand.

…No, He wouldn't.

He would get over it though. I'd just up his bouncer's fee from two new games to a Nintendo Switch.

This was going well. It was going too well, actually. I'd dodged too many bullets today. Logic dictated that something was bound to come up that would screw me over. It had happened way too much for me to just be blindly optimistic.

I wasn't the only one who felt that way apparently. Megan started glaring at nothing in particular, which started making me jumpy.

"What?" I asked, looking around as though I would be able to spot whatever it was that had her on edge, "What is it? Did someone blow up the house? Set the woods on fire?" It would have been just my luck.

Megan's nose wrinkled up, as if she were daring the world to try and throw something distracting at us to ruin our privacy, "No... I'm just waiting for something to butt in on us,"

Both of us stood there and waited quietly for several seconds, anticipating some kind of interruption. A text. A phone call. A friend running up to us. An inconsiderate drunk busting us out on getting close. Nothing.

Was the Lucy that was the universe finally going to let good old Charlie Brown Bellamy kick the football? I decided to take that gift and run with it.

"Fuck it, I might as well," I muttered to myself.

Megan looked back to me in confusion until she caught on to what I'd been going for, "Oh," She said quietly, reaching up to wrap her arms around my neck, "Yeah, you should."

I leaned in, closed my eyes, and finally got my goddamn kiss. It must have been pretty good, because Megan didn't rush to end it. She pressed herself against me, and I was more than happy to hold her there while we tied tongues. I heard her wings beat in the air a few times before we finally broke apart.

Megan kept her eyes closed for a few seconds and stayed on her tiptoes savoring the moment before finally cracking an eye open to look at me, "You taste like vodka, Bel."

How embarrassing. She tasted sweet to me. It was a shame I couldn't return the favor, "Sorry."

Had I not been slightly lit before heading outside and then got sidetracked several times, I probably would have popped a stick of gum first to clear the alcohol taste.

She stood back and crossed her arms, seemingly judging the kiss, "It wasn't bad though. And aside from that, you're a really good kisser," She admitted with a big smile and a rosy blush, "I'll give you a solid B."

I could feel how stupid the grin on my face really was. It didn't matter. I was a winner tonight, "That's the most important exam grade I got this semester."

"Second-most important, maybe," Megan corrected, giving me her hand to grab hold of, "Weren't you going to 'take me upstairs'?" She asked with a wag of her brows.

Yes. Yes I was. And valuable time was wasting.

A gentleman wouldn't go into any further into the evening's details, so I won't. I will say, however, that I didn't make it back to clean up after the party. On my way back to the dorms with Megan, Saberwolf was informed via secondhand text that he could find another place to sleep that night.

Also - and this is a handy piece of information for you girls with superpowers - did you know that there's no such thing as a 'walk of shame' when you can fly?

...Goddamn it, I love this school.

* * *

 **That's the chapter, and the end of the semester at that, ladies and gentlemen. There were lots of good times, and plenty of bad as well, but-.**

… **Oh dear Lord, I just had to hold myself back from making an Extraordinary Times jokes. Let's wrap this up before I say something I can't recover from.**

 **I'll have more stuff later. Until then, I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	19. With Friends Like These

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or anything Marvel-related. Man, the Punisher Netflix series was good. But it's kind of a case of what now? I can't see the second season being as good, but I can hope. Jon Bernthal kicked that role's ass. He _is_ Frank Castle now to me. When I think Punisher, his voice is in my head.

 **Chapter 19: With Friends Like These**

* * *

The end of the semester meant one thing to most of us as far as school was concerned: You didn't have to go home, but you had to get the hell out of here.

...Not really. Some kids didn't have a place to go. Some kids had parents that didn't want them home because they were mutants. Some kids just had more fun staying away from home and being free. Either way, there were plenty of students that remained behind at the Xavier Institute when a seasonal break from classes came up.

I was not one of them. I was getting the hell out of there while the getting was good and getting back to the west coast. Most of my team had family to get back to as well. And so, the mighty Paladins would go their separate ways for the summer, split to the four corners of the Earth from whence they came... temporarily.

Hisako had an earlier flight than any of us, seeing as how she had a long way to go to get back to Japan. The shuttle had taken her out of there in the morning. We'd all woken up to give her our goodbyes. It was the last time we would see her until the summer period was over and we all came back for the fall.

I could admit, I would miss my fine, Asian friend. We'd bonded through lukewarm sense of rivalry, mixed with shared near-death experiences. What more could you ask for to get closer to someone?

We had had our usual salty exchange before she had departed. It was the usual back-and-forth fare, consisting of me saying how much she would miss me when I was gone, her saying how she wouldn't be able to keep me from getting my butt kicked until we got back, me throwing out low-brow Asian jokes, her saying terrible shit about me in Japanese.

You know - the normal stuff.

Hisako brought it to an end by yanking my hat off of my head and frisbeeing it away into the fountain near the front gates. It was where everyone was leaving, so everybody saw it. I of course had to go after it, giving her time to get on the bus taking her to the airport before I could enact vengeance.

I fucking hate my friends.

If it had been my black hat, it wouldn't have been so bad. My damn fresh white hat got wet, and all the others were packed already, so I had to wear the one with clear to see water stains for _hours_ before it got dry _._ She got the last laugh until fall.

No... I fucking love my friends.

I was mad for all of ten seconds until I nearly died laughing. It had been a great throw.

Also among those who had to leave early for the sake of international flights, Megan.

That's right. I had a brand new lady friend I had to see off, which sucked, because I had to hope she was still interested in me two months from then. I was certain I'd be a crappy boyfriend when she lived one dorm building over from mine. What was I going to do with long-distance?

After the party, things had been going well. Granted, it had only been really a week. But it had been a great week! Granted, I hadn't slept with her again, because Megan couldn't just kick Hope out of their room, and Saberwolf had implied violence if I tried to kick him out of mine again. But that was fine. As outstanding as it was, and as much as I wanted to do it again, I wasn't some horn-dog. I was patient.

Granted, two months was a long time, but hey! I'd gone a loooong time without before. I could suffer through the summer.

I would have to deal with the loss of facetime somehow. It wasn't as though I had much of a choice if I wanted to at least try to make this whole thing work. These thoughts were in mind, but I hoped it didn't show on my face when we were saying goodbye. Not that anyone would have seen it though, seeing as how it was comfortably buried in the crook of Megan's neck.

"Mmmm. God... this is so good," I mumbled into her skin, getting her to giggle from the rumble of my voice. My arms were wrapped around her waist, lifting her off of the ground.

Megan had the _best_ hugs. Straight-up full body. I could feel every inch of her from the neck down to her waist. Outstanding. I'm pretty sure that one lasted for like two minutes straight. I didn't care. Nothing could ruin it for me.

"You know, you have to let go of her at some point, Bel. She's gonna miss the shuttle."

…Except for one of our teammates, as had become tradition since we'd made things official. This time it was one of Megan's.

I didn't even bother trying to dignify the person who spoke with any physical attention. No, Megan was going to get all of that instead, "Shut up, Nicky. We're doing a thing here," That thing lasted only for a few seconds longer before she finally let go, "Aww."

I wasn't trying to be cute. I was legit sad about it. I did not want to let go. I'm such a sucker for girls, it's ridiculous.

Megan pulled away and finally saw my sad look, "Aww, don't be so down," She smudged my cheeks like a large dog to try and fix a smile on my face, "It won't be so bad. It's not for that long."

It was two months. I literally just got her, and then I couldn't have her. What kind of shitty timing was that? I'll tell you. It was just the tried and true fortune of one Bellamy Marcher. Goddamn my luck. Way to be slow on the pitch in getting a girlfriend, champ.

What else could I do but suck it up and deal? It wasn't like either of us could teleport or anything to get back and forth. Time and distance were our barrier. I tried to be positive about things though, "Well, there's plenty of time to follow up on this when we all get back. I can come up with a bunch of things we can do by ourselves. If you're still up for it, that is."

Megan's eyes lit up in excitement, "Oh my God, yes! I'd love to!" She said, taking off from the ground, her hands clasped close to her face, "I mean, I wanted to after the first one that got messed up, but it just didn't seem right after everything that happened, and nobody'll mess with us next time, and there's so much we can do that'd be so much fun, and-," She stopped and realized that she had been going on for quite some time, "-I'm talking too much again."

I gently grabbed her hands and lowered her back down onto her feet, "Hey, other people talking means I don't have to. Besides, it's the last time I'm gonna see you in person for a little while."

Megan threw her arms around my neck and gave me a peck on the lips, "Call me when you get home?" She asked, pressing her nose against mine.

"Will do," I said, savoring the last of the contact I was going to have with Pixie for the summer, "Take care of yourself, Megan."

Megan flew backwards, her hands behind her with a large grin on her face, "I'm not the one who's been fighting robots and aliens all semester!" She said, stopping just short of the bus to spare me one more glance before getting on, "Bye, Bel."

I felt a sense of longing as I watched her go. For a moment, I really didn't want to go home, and contemplated the idea of following her like a puppy.

Goddamn it. Was it too late to call my parents and get my ticket changed for a flight to Wales instead? Just for a week or so?

...No, that would have been creepy. Thankfully, this was one of those kinds of things I couldn't just do. Otherwise, talk/act without thinking everything out Bellamy would have been screwed.

As I started walking away, sulking, Eddie came out of nowhere and threw an arm around my neck, a big grin on his face as he rubbed my hat down on my head, "Ooh, gonna send Pixie some pictures from back home? Better make sure your parents don't catch you," He said.

It took a moment to catch on to what he was getting at, "Why would my parents care if I sent pictu-?" Things finally snapped into place like a set of Legos. I slipped his arm off of me and put him into a wristlock, "Fuck off, Eddie, I'm not sending any dick pics."

He laughed until I let him go, mostly because I didn't put an ounce of pressure into the hold. He got the point though, "I'm just messing with you. Pixie isn't even the type," He said, before taking on a thoughtful expression, "...Though if she sends _you_ any nudes..."

Moron. The worst part about it was that I wasn't even mad. We fed off of each other normally, and if my head hadn't been on straight, who knows what I would have said, "Does your thirsty ass need a dollar for the vending machine? It's a long ride to the airport," In this instance, I gave him a good punch to the shoulder and shut it down, "I'll see you next semester, fucker."

Eddie seemed surprised, like he had expected me to be getting on one of the shuttles like him, "You're staying here for summer break?" He realized I didn't have a backpack with me, and he hadn't seen me load any luggage into the shuttle, "If I were you, I wouldn't be able to wait to get back out to California."

I waved it off. I _was_ heading home, I just wasn't leaving right then, "No, I'm going. I just can't fly out until later," I told him. Like hell I was going to be stuck at a ghost school all summer, "Don't worry about me. I'm not gonna rot away on campus."

Eddie looked at me with the utmost seriousness, pointing right into my face, "You'd better not. Dude, our leader can't be stuck at _school_ all year-round. The Paladins have a boat-load of cred now compared to January. Let's try to hold onto that. I want some primo summer break stories when we get back."

I swatted his hand out of my face and turned him around to push him in the direction of his shuttle, "Whatever. Worry about filling your own quota on that. You'd better get on the bus before you miss your flight and have to fly yourself home."

"You say that like I couldn't!" He said as a parting shot, holding up the 'too sweet' from a distance, "Get some rest and have some fun, asshole!"

I held up my own 'too sweet', but didn't let Eddie get away with just that, "Hey, who's the leader here! Don't tell me what to do! I'm Morris Day; you're Jerome, bitch!"

He turned back just before stepping onto his bus, "I don't know that means!" He shouted back.

I expected nothing less, but at least he knew it was a reference, of which I made many. I left him with my cultural homework suggestion for the summer, "Listen to Morris Day and the Times, or watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back! You'll get it!"

"Yeah, I won't do either of those things!" And with that, he disappeared onto his transport.

Ingrate. That was the thanks I got for trying to expand Eddie's mind with some fine entertainment. He couldn't spare two hours out of his entire summer? I saw how much weight my opinion on movies and other media held to my friends. I was good enough to shoot our enemies in the face, but not good enough to throw them a movie suggestion.

I almost flipped him off, but stopped, realizing that I was about to shoot the bird to an entire bus full of kids with superpowers. That, and I caught sight of another of my teammates coming up to me. She was my favorite, an honest-to-goodness good girl, and I would not allow her to be corrupted by my bad and at times vulgar habits.

Her timing was impeccable, as she nailed me with a hug right as I turned around to face her all the way, "Hey, Ruthie!" She barely budged me and I wrapped my arms around her, "So I guess you're getting ready to roll out?"

Ruth looked up at me. Well, she turned her face up to me. Her eyes were covered so she couldn't technically 'look' at me. She had an ear-to-ear smile though, which made _me_ smile, "Bellamy! Yes, her aunt has arrived, so she is going home now."

"I guess your aunt does live close enough to drive you back," I let out a sigh and turned away, tapping into my inner ham as I covered my eyes with my hand, "I guess, if you must. Go on. Leave me behind too, just like all of the others!" I snuck a quick peek to see her standing and waiting patiently to finish my dramatics, "Nothing?"

"She will see you next semester, thank you," Ruth said, reaching out to pat me on the head... again, like a large dog.

"Yeah-yeah-yeah," I said, rolling my eyes and readjusting my hat. What was it with my friends messing with it before they left? Was it that much of a target today because I went with bright white? Either way, I pulled Ruth back in for another hug. She didn't complain, "If you need me, call me. Even if it's only to talk. Just remember, if you call early, I'm three hours behind you so I might still be asleep."

She tensed up for a moment when I touched upon the talks we tried to have whenever her visions of terrible things grew to be too much for her. Thankfully, she relaxed against me just as quickly, "Thank you. She will, yes," She mumbled into my chest, "She is glad you are coming back."

I didn't have any siblings, but if I had a little sister, I could do much worse than having one like Ruth, "Of course I'm coming back. We'll be together again before you know it."

"Yes, we will all need you."

"The Paladins need you too, Ruthie."

"No. All of us will need you."

She didn't say anything else after that, she just held onto me. If she didn't want to talk about it, she didn't have to. Anytime we did something, what she saw changed. Lord knows she'd had to filter enough horrible shit through her head without having to tell me about every little detail that came up. Not like I would remember them all anyway.

I let her stay like that for as long as she wanted to. She'd be able to take a break while she was with her aunt. From what I knew, she'd always been treated well when she stayed there. And the woman probably missed her too, so she'd spoil her all summer. Good. She deserved it.

"You don't have to deal with any of this insane crap for a while," I told her, giving her a kiss on top of her head, "Don't worry about a thing."

I could say that all I wanted to, but Ruth probably knew that I only meant it to a certain degree. I didn't know what I didn't know. She did. She had seen basically everything. Most of the things that had happened, and most of the things that would.

All I could do was try and be ready. But that was for later. For the time being, I walked Ruth to her aunt's car to see her off, as was my duty as team leader of the Paladins. And with that, I was alone.

Well, not entirely alone. There was still one member of my team left around the Institute, though we hadn't been talking much lately. Not that Laura was particularly social to begin with, but I could tell what the cold shoulder was like, even from her. She hadn't been malicious or anything, but for the time being, her favorite person I was not.

I had a guess as to why, but I hadn't had a chance to talk to her about it. She was really good at not being around to say anything to when she wanted to be. I wanted to smooth things out before I left for the summer, but it looked like I wasn't going to get the chance. On the bright side, in two months things might be cool again.

There were still a few hours until I needed to get onto a shuttle to head to the airport, and all of my stuff was packed, so I had nothing to occupy my time until I had to leave. I still had to try and figure out if I could somehow get Saberwolf through an airport so he could go home with me. Then I had to convince him to go.

I rounded a corner inside and bumped into the short, metal-filled wall that was Mister Logan. He didn't budge. I guess I wasn't strong enough without my powers active to push him around yet.

Mister Logan just gave me a look and brushed off his shirt where we collided, "Hey, Glowstick. Glad you haven't left yet. Been looking for you."

"I'm not going anywhere for a while. My flight isn't until this evening, "I told him with a shrug, "Why? What's up?"

A big, victorious grin took form on his face. One that didn't particularly fill me with a sense of good confidence. Before I could turn to try and run, Mister Logan's hairy forearm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me in. The man had an iron grip.

"Kid, I've got a proposition for you."

XxX

With three large bags that weren't my own in hand, I walked through the mansion looking for someone. There weren't many kids left populating the halls, so I didn't come across many others in my search. At this point, finding who I was looking for wasn't the problem. It was getting her to pay attention that was the issue.

I found Laura sitting by herself on a balcony, watching the activity down below at the front of the school with all of the other students leaving. The sound of me dropping her bags near her got her to turn around with a start.

When I usually approached her, she would know I was coming from a mile away. She also wouldn't say anything and would just go back to what she was doing. Not so much this time. Maybe because I had three bags full of _her_ stuff to make my own scent more subtle.

"Yo," I greeted while her eyes were still wide with bewilderment, "Ass up. We've gotta go."

She did not get up from where she sat on the banister, "I am staying here for the summer. I have no home or anywhere else to go to," She looked down at the bags full of her things and then turned her sharp green eyes up to me, "Please return my things to my room."

That was not so much a request, as it was a veiled threat. On any other day, I might have taken the time to heed it. This was not one of those days.

"Nope. Apparently, you're coming home with me," I told her and watched her mouth fall open, "I already called my parents and cleared it with them. If it makes you feel any better, Saberwolf is coming too!"

Laura recovered and shook her head, "Saberwolf will never be able to get past airport security. He is a walking weapon. Even I will have difficulty being cleared to board an airplane."

Was she making excuses as to why she couldn't go? Silly girl. Did she not think that these things would be covered? "It's a good thing we're not flying commercial then, isn't it?"

Her brow furrowed. She was temporarily at a loss, "I... do not understand."

Explanation came in the form of her DNA source, walking out onto the balcony with news, "Glowstick, I got it cleared with the upper brass. I can take the Blackbird and drop all three of you off in San Fran. We all ready to go?" I pointed to Logan as the solution to my/our problem.

Laura got up from her seat and walked over sternly to her... father? Brother? Whatever relationship the two of them represented, "Logan? What is going on?"

He had the good grace to look sheepish, seeing as how he had made a decision involving her, "Well, I figured, we're trying to get you to have a more normal time of things. So why not give you the chance to have a real summer vacation too?"

The word vacation seemed like a foreign word to her, at least regarding her getting to have one, "I... you... what?"

Logan sighed and rubbed his knuckles where his claws came out from, "Long story short: you trust him. So he's taking you to hang out with him for a while. If you like it, you can stay there longer. If you don't, I'll bring you back," He stopped and put on a heartfelt look, "I just want you to give it a try, darlin'."

Laura seemed to shrink in on herself, "I do not wish to do this? Why can I not just stay here?"

"Because no one's gonna be here," Mister Logan rebutted, "Just some of the staff and other X-Men, and a handful of kids that I know you won't try and do anything with."

"You will also be here," Laura tried to point out, only to be rebuked with a thumbs-down, "No?"

"No I won't," Mister Logan explained, "I got business to take care of. Business that'll be taking me far and wide."

"I will go with you."

Mister Logan gave her a look, "This isn't exactly nice business I plan on getting up to," Laura continued to just stare at him as though that mattered to her, "...Right. You're still not going."

Laura looked over at me, and then back to Mister Logan, "I do not want to go with Bellamy," She said resolutely. It came as a bit of a surprise to the both of us. I knew she wasn't happy with me, but that was a bit far.

Mister Logan and I looked at each other before he pointed over at the obstinate girl before us, "What did you do to her?"

A perfectly reasonable question. Better that it didn't sound threatening, so I guess I'd earned some kind of benefit of the doubt, "Nothing directly. I mean, I _think_ I know what the problem is though, and I'd like to handle it, but she hasn't been making it easy."

"You sorry for whatever you did?"

"I've apologized like three times. I'd have brought a peace offering by now, but I don't know what she likes."

For some reason, that managed to get a few chuckles out of Mister Logan, "Well this should do nicely then. Take her around, show her a good time. A good, _peaceful_ time," He made sure to specify, looking between the two of us before focusing in on me, "Do whatever the fuck it is you brats are supposed to do with time off."

Laura got as close to pouting as I had ever seen from her, "I am still standing right here," She remarked in return for Logan and I talking about her between ourselves.

I smiled apologetically. It was pretty condescending to do something like that, "We know. But he told me to do this, and I don't have any problems with it. I already got the money back for my ticket, and my folks are expecting you, me, and a big metal wolf at the front door in the next three hours."

Laura glared my way, and I took a step back, only for Mister Logan to step between us, scowling down at his clone, "Oh, no. Don't you blame him. This ain't him. If it was, I'd have thrown this whole thing right at his feet from the start," He told her, pointing a thumb at himself, "This is me. I'm the one making you do this. If you wanna get pissed at somebody, get pissed at me, but you're going."

I got out of the way and tried to slip over to the door just in case I needed to make a quick getaway. Two very tough, very intense people with claws, potentially about to go at it on an open balcony? I didn't want to be anywhere near that one. I mean... if it happened, I was going to watch it, but I would have preferred to be at a safer distance.

Laura growled at Mister Logan, who didn't blink. Eventually, she turned, stomped over to grab her bags, then stomped off inside. She made sure to stop and cut her eyes at me, if only to make sure that I knew she was not happy with this.

She didn't need to worry. That point had been made abundantly clear.

I waited until I figured she was out of earshot (which was quite a distance) before I went to Mister Logan again, "She's gonna be miserable the whole time we're in San Francisco. You know that, right?"

I mistakenly believed that he felt this would be his problem. He rolled his eyes at me, "Tough shit. She made a promise that she would actually try to be normal this time," Clearly, he intended on making her try to stick out school life, "And it's not like I'm sending her somewhere she's never been with someone she doesn't know. She knows you. She knows that city. So it shouldn't be weird."

And yet, it was going to be. There was no way it wouldn't be, "It's gonna be weird. This whole thing's gonna be weird and uncomfortable. Why am I doing this again?"

His hand reached around the back of my neck as he pushed me inside, "Same reason she's doing it. Because I told you to. Now get your pet robot and get your ass to the hangar," He ordered.

I stumbled forward a few steps, taken by surprise and knocked off-balance. Fucker. I was going to get him for that, "You know, one of these days, I'm gonna whoop your ass," I warned him. He didn't really heed it.

Patronizing wasn't a strong enough term to describe the way he responded, "Is one of these days today? Because if not, I don't care. Ass on the plane, Glowstick."

He was _so_ lucky I knew I couldn't beat him by myself yet. Maybe if Laura had been in the mood, we could have made up over teaming up to stomp a mudhole in her DNA source? Ah, missed opportunities.

XxX

The Blackbird flight to San Francisco was a lot quicker than heading through an airport and taking a commercial flight would have been. It was a lot cooler too. It was almost hard to believe that Mister Logan had actually gotten permission to use it just to take me, Laura, and Saberwolf around somewhere. I guess his position and the time he'd put in as one of the X-Men gave him some clout.

The downside with it was that I had to deal with Laura staring a hole through me for most of the flight. She didn't say anything or respond to anything I said to her. And Saberwolf was no help. He just slept on the floor the whole time.

By the time Mister Logan dropped us in a park about a mile away from my house, I was glad to get farther than claws' distance away from Laura, just in case.

"Have fun. Be good," Were the last words Mister Logan left us with before taking off in the Blackbird, leaving us in the heart of my neighborhood. Laura looked like she wanted to walk off and leave, but she had somehow been cowed by Logan.

I have no idea how. I have no idea why. But she hung back and followed me through the streets to my home. It was a pretty neat thing to see every person turn their head, either on foot or in their car, to see me walk around next to a giant metal wolf.

"You are just the best conversation-starter," I commented to Saberwolf after a few minutes of walking, "You're not put out by all of this, are you? Coming to California?"

Wolf's hydraulics gently whirred as he kept pace beside me on the sidewalk, playing pack mule as he carried most of my stuff, "I am intrigued to see more of the world. Perhaps visiting this place will give me a better idea of where I would like to go, or what I would like to do."

I grinned at my A.I. friend, "I like that. That's a positive attitude to have," I told him before looking back at the girl trailing us, "Laura, you hear that? Be more like Wolf. He's got a glass half-full attitude here."

She growled at me. Honest-to-goodness growled. Okay, so trying to lighten the mood with her wasn't going to work anytime soon. That being said, I focused on speaking with Wolf.

"Well this is definitely the place to be if you want a good mix of stuff to see and do," I said to him, before beginning to brainstorm ideas, "Ooh! We can probably go to a game or something. You like football or basketball? I'll tell you right now though, I'm not going to Oakland for a fucking Golden State game. Laura, do you like sports?"

"..." No response whatsoever.

"...Riiiight..." I said, kicking myself for trying to integrate her into the conversation again. This was going to be like getting blood from a stone. I just turned forward, shifted my bags on my shoulders, and kept going, "Anyway, we're just about there."

My family had the kind of rowhouse that you thought about when you thought of people living on one of the hills in San Francisco. A pretty big one. There was enough space for two guests to stay at comfortably, even one the size of Wolf. After all, it wasn't like he actually slept in a bed.

I had the key, so I opened up the door and invited the other two inside, "Welcome. Make yourselves at home. Blah-blah-blah," I said as Laura and Wolf walked past to the living room, "Hey, mom, dad, anyone home?" I asked, heading farther down the foyer.

I heard my mom first before I saw her, "Bellamy?" She came out of the office and gave me a gigantic hug the moment she saw me, "Oh, my goodness, look at you! You look so much bigger!"

I pulled back and raised an eyebrow, "It's been six months, mom," I mean, I felt bigger when it came to my muscles, but I also saw myself every day. It wasn't like I could tell the difference looking in a mirror, "I can't look that different."

"Six months is a long time for a teenager. Trust me, you really do," She heard movement in the foyer and saw the back half of Saberwolf walk into the living room. Her breath hitched, "Whoa. You weren't kidding about the wolf thing."

I laughed and got a good swat on the shoulder for my troubles, "I haven't been kidding about anything I've told you about the school so far," I said before walking with her to the living room to make introductions. Both Wolf and Laura stopped looking around to take note of the two of us, "Right. So, the big metal wolf is Saberwolf."

"That's easy enough," My mom said, walking past me to stand in front of him, "...He's not dangerous, is he?"

Yes, he was dangerous, but you didn't just say something like that up front, "He's a big, old softie," I said, waving off mom's concerns, "I mean, not literally because he's made of metal and stuff, but he's been with me for a few months. All he's done is be a friend."

Saberwolf sat on the floor, his thin tail calmly waving around in the air, "I have no aim to bring harm to your home or anything else. I do not want to harm anything. I simply wish to enjoy San Francisco peacefully," He said, calmly pleading his own case.

I gestured to him as if to say 'I told you so'. Mom rolled her eyes and walked over to Wolf, stooping down to get at eye level, "Well, your dad already agreed. But I didn't expect him to be so big. Where are we going to put him?"

"Mom, he's a machine. He sleeps on the floor," I deadpanned, "Put him in any room. Put him in my room. It really doesn't matter."

It wasn't like comfort or discomfort was a thing for him. Wolf didn't object, so I figured that course of action was just fine with him. With that matter settled, my mom moved on to the quieter of the guests I had brought home with me.

Laura noticed that eyes were now on her, and she wasn't fond of the attention. I half expected her to run out of the back door when my mom went up to her, smiling as she looked her over, "And this is the girl you called about this morning? Your little last-minute addition," She leaned in toward me to whisper, "Is she the girlfriend?"

Oh God. Mom didn't know, but Laura could hear her, clearly. Even if she whispered, she might as well have been saying it right in Laura's ear instead of mine. Thankfully, Laura didn't seem to care about the case of mistaken identity.

I got between them and started making introductions, "This is my teammate, Laura Kinney," I said, gesturing to Laura, "She's... related... to one of my teachers," And that was all I was going to say about that.

Mom let my questionable explanation slide in lieu of focusing on making Laura feel welcome, "Well, you're free to make yourself at home for as long as you're here. I hope Bellamy doesn't bother you too much at school."

Laura looked at me with a momentary glare, still upset with me for whatever reason, "He... has his moments," She said, before softening her glance on my mother, "Thank you for allowing me to stay here."

Mom clearly liked that Laura was way more polite than most people my age that she'd come across, "If you go to his school, you must be a mutant too. What are your powers?" Laura silently held up a fist and popped her claws. My mom cringed at the sound of metal tearing flesh, "...That looks painful."

Suddenly self-conscious, Laura put her claws away and took a step away from my mother, "It is," She mumbled, rubbing the healed spot between her knuckles. It was a habit she seemed to share with Mister Logan, whether the two of them knew it or not.

My mom looked at me as if I had the answers to this mystery of a girl. I didn't, and my body language let her know as much. Mom eventually went to usher her upstairs to the rooms, "Let me show you where you can put your things."

I watched them go before I looked down at Saberwolf, who had been an audience to the whole interaction, "What was that?"

"Your mother felt fear at the moment Laura revealed her claws," Wolf said, "I could hear her heart rate quicken. It is likely that Laura could as well. I would also venture to guess she could smell her fear as well."

I looked at the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh. This was going to be a long vacation.

XxX

It never occurred to me how weird it would be for my family to realize that because of my powers, I was now an insomniac. I had left pretty quickly after my powers manifested, so they didn't have to ever deal directly with their son's mutant growing pains. It had never come up in all of my weekly briefings when I called home, or when they called me. Even when I went home, I didn't tell them about it. I just stayed up way later than everyone else as if it were normal.

There wasn't anything I could do but sit up and watch TV and movies, so I sat back and binged shows on Netflix until I got bored enough to do something else. I relaxed with a little notepad and pen in my hands, jotting something down whenever the moment took me. There was no reason not to do something productive while I was doing nothing.

I never heard Laura coming, but at least she had the courtesy to enter the room from the other side where I could see her, clad in the tasteful nightwear of a t-shirt and little black shorts. She forewent coming in by way that would have put her behind me. It wasn't as scary the way she actually chose to do it, and it was late, so her being deathly quiet could be forgiven.

I raised my head at her in acknowledgment, not wanting to start a conversation just to get glared at the whole time. To my surprise, she spoke to me first, "What are you doing?" She asked.

It caught me off-guard, but it wasn't unwelcome. I held up the notepad with things I'd scribbled on it in the meantime, "Coming up with a list of stuff for all of us to do before the end of the break," I told her before taking a look at the clock, "Why are you even still up? It's like three in the morning."

She didn't answer. She just stood at the entrance, looking around at anything other than me. This was starting to get old.

"Are you still not talking to me?" I asked rhetorically, knowing that if she wasn't I wouldn't get an answer anyway, "Hey, I'm sorry, okay? I should have said something before I left the party in the middle of it. I left you dangling in the wind, almost by yourself. I apologize."

Laura looked at me strangely, shaking her head, "That is not why I am upset with you."

Really? Because it had been the reason I'd been banking on since I realized there was a problem. It had started after the party, so I figured it was something I had done during the party, "Why are you mad at me then?" She clammed up and went silent again, "...Laura, I can't fix the problem if I don't know what the problem is."

"I do not wish to discuss this with you."

As if I had expected any other answer. I swung my legs over to sit up properly and free a spot for her, "Come here, sit down," I asked, patting a spot next to me on the couch. She walked over hesitantly and sat down, "I don't know what I can do to actually get you to trust me."

Instead of looking down at the floor like she had been, she looked up at my face without glaring for the first time in days, "I do trust you."

It was a nice thought to consider. Too bad it wasn't true, "No, you don't. Not really," I said with a stiff smile, "It's okay though. It's not like I've given you a lot of reasons to."

It was understandable. With everyone else on the Paladins, we had all been through some kind of mess and got closer that way. Laura hadn't had the team mandated brush with death the rest of us had, even if she'd had plenty by herself.

She could be told by Mister Logan to rely on me until he went blue in the face. For someone like her, who had been through the things she'd been through, she needed an actual reason to put herself out there like that.

Laura, pulled her knees up to her chest, feet on the couch, "I am sorry."

We didn't need all of that. Giving me mean looks and whatnot was no reason to apologize to me. Better to save it for real stuff to be sorry about, so then it would mean more, "Don't be sorry. _You're_ supposed to be mad at _me_ , remember?" I reminded her.

"I do not know what is upsetting me," She said, getting back to the main point I'd been trying to speak to her about, "I cannot think of anything you could have done to originally offend me."

So she was mad for the sake of being mad? That didn't sound right. I couldn't tell if she was lying or not, but the way her brow furrowed in thought at the situation, it seemed she didn't have much a better idea as to what had been eating her as I did, "Are you mad right now?"

"…No."

True enough, she seemed much mellower than she had been at school, or on the Blackbird. And if that was the case, I might as well have tried to get a little more out of our talk, "Well, next time you are, could you tell me? That way I have a fighting chance at figuring out why."

It sounded like an agreeable enough request to Laura, "I can do that," She said before she seemed to sink further into the couch, "...Your mother is afraid of me. I do not think she likes me."

Just like Wolf said about my mom earlier. I felt bad, but it was nothing that couldn't be fixed with time. I was sure of it, "Popping your claws might have just spooked her. We can handle that. And you still haven't met my dad yet. Don't worry about it so much. It's just the first day."

XxX

When your family owns a theater, summer is awesome, because when all of the blockbusters come out, you can watch them all for free. Better yet, this year I didn't have to work part-time at the theater because I was entertaining company.

I took Laura and Wolf to see a movie as our first real activity because it was simple. Sit down, watch the damn film, and before and after, make conversation. We sat at the back so Wolf could sit down in the space between our seats and the back wall. On the way, no one had picked anything to watch, so I chose an action flick. I had no idea if anyone particularly enjoyed it, even if I did. Seeing as how Wolf didn't bitch while we were watching it, I guess he liked it.

Movies were supposed to make it easy to branch into other topics. Namely in my case, finding out what the fuck Laura liked. My miscalculation was in trying to engage in small talk with Laura Kinney. Nevertheless, I gave it my best shot.

We walked out of the theater and the building once the movie let out. After being in the dark for hours, the afternoon sun didn't hurt my eyes, seeing as how light was my thing, "We're probably gonna be coming back here a lot, so we should figure out what's worth seeing," I told them, taking a moment to stop and point at a marquee on the wall, "I wanna see that."

The trailer for it that had run before our movie that day had been good enough to get my attention. It was supposed to be funny, and it got a few legit laughs out of me. Why not? Comedies were usually hit and miss, but it wasn't like we would have to pay for a ticket.

Laura didn't seem very interested in watching that one, "I do not think comedy is for me," She said, "I may lack the social experience to find it entertaining."

She made a pretty good point. Also a very self-aware one that made me think, "What do you guys even think is funny, anyway?" I asked, "Do you guys think _anything_ is funny?"

Seriously, they had to be the two most joyless individuals I had ever been around. Wolf was an A.I., so it wasn't really his fault. Come to think of it, it probably wasn't Laura's fault either.

Wolf answered first, at my expense, as usual, "It is funny watching you fail at something you boast about," Sometimes a guy had to stop and think about why they were friends with someone.

Why did my friends enjoy seeing me suffer? I didn't understand, "You sadistic, metal fuck," I told him before trying to get someone else's answer, "What about you, Laura? Got anything?"

I half expected her to share Wolf's answer, but she actually took the time to give me a real one, "I appreciate irony. I am afraid I have a dark sense of humor, though."

If that was her only hang-up, we had no problems on that front, and I let her know as much, "There are movies for that. I wonder what you laughing sounds like. Hell, I barely know what you smiling looks like."

"I have smiled around you," Laura argued in return.

She may have been offended, but she didn't have much of a leg to stand on, "Yeah, barely, like I said," I remarked as I hit the button to stop traffic for us to pass through the crosswalk, "And when you do, it's like if someone catches you, you'll get in trouble."

"I _would_ get in trouble."

I had to focus to realize I'd made out what she said. I just didn't believe/understand it, "What?"

Laura kept her eyes on the passing cars instead of looking at me, "The people who made me, the Facility, they employed a woman, my handler. Her name is Kimura," She said, no emotion in her voice, "If I did anything wrong, I would be punished."

And I could only imagine what a punishment entailed for someone as tough as Laura, "But you're, like, a top of the line assassin, right? She never went far enough that you just decided to kill her?"

Not that I was a proponent for murder or anything, but… we weren't normal people. Some of us had to deal with circumstances others couldn't comprehend.

I had only been told a few thing about Laura. Not even the cliffnotes. Past the fact that she was extremely well-trained, had similar powers to Mister Logan, and had been cloned from some of Mister Logan's DNA, I didn't know anything about her.

"I cannot harm Kimura. Her skin is invulnerable," Laura told us, "She was made to counter me."

"So you tried," I said, leading the conversation further.

At my question, Laura shivered for a moment. It was 80 degrees out, "Kimura enjoyed it when I tried. It gave her a justification for harming me."

It might have been wrong of me to bait her to say more when it made her uncomfortable, but she was interesting! And she never talked about herself unless you made her! I was curious! That curiosity turned to anger though. Laura hadn't been afraid of anything so far since I met her. What kind of monster was this woman to get that kind of response out of her?

I wasn't the only one thinking this way, either, "What are the exact specifications of this Kimura person's powers?" Wolf asked ominously as the light changed to let us cross the street, "I could devise a method for you to kill her."

That reminded me why I was friends with him. Good old metal furball. He might have been an asshole of an A.I., but he was our asshole of an A.I., for sure. A Paladin through and through, even if he couldn't be enrolled as a student.

Laura was determined to deal with the whole thing solo. It seemed to be how she handled most problems, "No one else should get involved with the Facility. If they come for me, it is my fight. These are dangerous people."

"Are you serious?" I asked sternly. I didn't take the bad things that happened to my friends lightly, whether it was in the past or not, "For someone with a bad sense of humor, that was a pretty good joke."

"I was not joking."

I gave a completely facetious smile and laugh, "Oh, so you're just stubborn then?" She growled, but she could do that all she wanted to. I had a point to make, "Laura, you're one of us. If something goes down, I'm gonna fight for you."

We had been over this already. We sat down, just the two of us, and talked the whole thing out. I thought we'd come to an understanding. Laura really did need more than lip service assurances to believe in something, even if she wanted to.

"Not against them. They are different," Laura said, "Organized. Well-hidden, well-funded. Intelligent. Ruthless."

There's something to be said for trauma. Even if you know in your heart that you're in a position to move past it, that it shouldn't matter anymore, it still does. There's nothing you can do. It rents space in your head, and you can never get it out.

Even if she knew what to do, knew she wasn't under their control, knew that she could fight back, it was ingrained in her that she couldn't. Oh, she would try. Absolutely she would. There was no way she would let them have their way without going kicking and screaming. But the way she was, I didn't like her chances to come out on top. Not because she was alone, but because her entire life she was conditioned that she couldn't win. Not against them.

Me, on the other hand? "In the last six months, I've fought an alien army, a racist cyborg, a goddamn room…" I was afraid during all of these things, and would continue to be afraid during whatever future encounters awaited me. But that didn't matter, "To you, these Facility guys might be the boogeyman, but to me, they're just another bunch of creeps to add to the list. In short: fuck 'em."

No matter how shaken by something I was, the idea of losing, of failing, and all of the consequences that came with it scared me more than anything else.

Wolf nudged Laura with his head to get her attention, "Yes. As Bellamy says: fuck them."

I could have sworn my eyes almost popped out of my head at hearing that. Wolf hadn't been much for the casual swearing up to that point, "That was priceless. I need to get you to curse more."

She seemed to give up trying to make me back off of my own statement. Good. Because that wasn't going to happen, "You do not understand."

Maybe. But I wasn't trying to say that I could beat them. I was saying that if it came down to it, I would approach taking them on just like anyone else, "I get that they're dangerous. I mean, they made you. But we've got the same options with them that we have with everything that comes at us – fight or run."

I would approach them differently, but I wouldn't treat them differently. An enemy was an enemy. Don't revere an enemy. Give them enough respect to find a way to win.

Man... what a buzzkill that conversation turned out to be. I just wanted to take my friends to the freaking movies. I didn't want everything to get all serious. It was summer.

But that was the normal kid way of looking at things. We were not normal kids. I made light in various forms, Laura had claws and assassin training, and we were both hanging out with a fucking metal wolf. Just because we weren't at the most dangerous school in the world, the Xavier Institute, that didn't mean we were safe. This summer was not going to be what I was used to.

* * *

 **Well, the school year is over, and we've got some time at Bellamy's home, and with guests too! There's no possible way any of this could ever go wrong. And if you're thinking there is, stop it. You're just being a pessimist.**

 **As we all know, nothing bad ever happens to the X-Men.**

…

 **Okay, let me change that one up a bit. Nothing bad ever happens to X-Men-in-trainin-.**

…

 **Damn it.**

 **Either way, that's it for me. I hope you guys enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	20. West Coast Shuffle

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. My New Year's resolution is to stop getting so irrationally angry at this fact.

I'll let you know in advance that I will not uphold this resolution. It won't even last a week.

 **Chapter 20: West Coast Shuffle**

* * *

Being an insomniac had a few perks. Namely, I could easily operate at someone else's convenience when it came to time zones. I didn't have to sleep, so if I had to stay up until the wee hours of the morning to make things easier for Megan to Skype with me, it wasn't a major issue. 2 AM for me was like 10 AM for her.

I couldn't help but smile as I saw her reaction when she took in the view of my bedroom. It was all I could show her for the time being without disturbing others or going outside in the dark at an ungodly hour.

She had showed me her room first. It was just as light and fluffy as I imagined it would be in my head. Like, what you expected a girl's room to look at when you had never seen one and viewed it in your head.

" _Wow, Bel! Your room looks more normal than I thought it would!"_ She said, sitting back patiently as I gave her as good of a look as I could through the camera of my phone, _"It definitely wasn't what I was expecting."_

Wasn't what she was expecting? Now what did that mean? "What did you think my room looked like?" I asked, flipping the camera's view back to me so she could see the skeptical look on my face.

Megan had the good grace to blush at being put on the spot by me, _"I don't know. A wall full of DVDs and Blu-Rays. Three TVs and a bunch of video game consoles hooked up to them. Dark curtains and stuff."_

I gave her a stern look, entirely in jest, "You thought I had a shut-in's room, didn't you?" Megan averted her eyes and fidgeted in place a bit. It made me laugh, "Come on. I'm not that bad, am I?"

I mean, no, I didn't have a countless number of DVDs. I had all of my movies and series downloaded on a bunch of mobile hard drives and backed up on a cloud, thank you very much. And I did have a bunch of consoles. I had like eight of them, and a bunch of games for them. But I kept most of them out of plain sight when I wasn't using them.

Also, I did have blackout curtains as a function of my powers' symptoms. It was just that they were open at the moment.

She was more dead-on in her expectations of what my room was like than she knew. The only reason I didn't have another TV in my room was because I couldn't afford it. Two screens was definitely on my list of things to make happen.

"So how's Wales?" I asked, laying back down on my bed, resting my arm and phone on my chest. She did the same, instead laying down on her stomach on her bed, "Is it... I have no idea what Wales is like to even start asking questions," I admitted with some shame.

Megan didn't hold it against me. Instead, she let out a desperate sigh. She was not a happy Pixie, _"Compared to Salem Center, my hometown is soooo boring. I feel so sorry for you now! How bored must you have been at the Institute when you live in San Francisco?"_

Given everything that happened, I didn't really have a whole lot of time to dwell on the common trappings of teenage boredom, "I don't think that's a fair comparison, hon. Some kind of weird garbage was always happening at school. Anything would be boring compared to that."

And I had learned to embrace the quiet when I could get it. It just meant that there wasn't anything actively out to get me or otherwise screw me over at the moment.

I could see her kicking her feet behind her fitfully, _"What am I supposed to do all summer though? All my friends I had left from here are away on their holidays."_

That made me feel bad. It made me wish I was there to entertain her. Alas, I was thousands of miles away, "Relax. I'm pretty sure there'll be enough crazy to go around when we get back. Especially if you hang around me for any decent period of time," She had experienced it already, come to think of it.

A distasteful shiver went through her, remembering what had happened when they'd tried to go on their first supervised date, _"Yeah... I think I'm okay with not having to deal with anything like that again,"_ Her expression then turned to one of concern, which confused me. We hadn't been talking about anything sad. Not until that point at least, _"Bel, did you ever talk to anyone about what happened with those aliens? About what happened with Professor Pryde?"_

I pursed my lips. I didn't want to talk about this, but it had been long enough. To Megan's credit, she didn't ask me anything in the days and weeks after I'd gotten back from Breakworld. Knowing her, she must have been dying to do it. I appreciated that she let me be for a while. That was why the thought of talking to her about it then didn't bother me as much as I thought it would have.

"There's not a whole lot to talk about, Megs," I said to her before at least trying to give her something concrete, "Things didn't go the way we wanted to, and now my teacher's lost in space. She's not dead, she's just... not here with us. Because she had to save the world."

Now she was stuck drifting aimlessly through space, and I couldn't help her. Not when it counted. But then again, I had done enough thinking about that particular fact. Dwelling on it further would do me no favors.

" _You know what? I think it's really cool that she did that,"_ Megan said with a sad smile, _"It really, really sucks that it happened, but your teacher saved the world! Everybody knows that Kitty Pryde saved the Earth."_

If nothing else, at least the S.W.O.R.D. and the Avengers let that knowledge go public. The more positive news mutants and the X-Men could get, the better. As far as I was concerned, after Agent Brand forcibly recruited us into service, the least she could do was make sure everyone knew that we had been the ones that saved their asses.

My teacher had saved their asses. Human, mutant, four-legged mammal, and slithering reptile alike. Every creature on Earth. The thought did give me some comfort.

"I'm proud. I'm proud of Miss Pryde. I'm proud that she trained me. I'm proud that _she_ thought _I_ was good enough to lead the Paladins," And it was the last real order she had given me. She had believed that I had what it took to be a legit leader. To take care of everybody under me. That meant something. Even more than it did when she'd first given me the responsibility, "So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go back to school, I'm gonna lead my team, and I'm gonna make sure that nothing like that ever happens to anyone I care about again."

That meant my crew. That meant Megan. That meant everyone that had made my life better for being in it. If it was in my power to prevent something so terrible from occurring ever again, I would do so.

I wasn't going to watch anything so sad happen and be powerless to prevent it. Over my dead body.

XxX

I had overlooked a particular aspect of bringing guests over to my house for the summer. One guest more than the other to be more specific. Laura.

I hadn't taken into account what the other people around me would think when they found out that she was spending that long with me by ourselves. My first warning should have been when my mom mistook her as the girlfriend I had recently informed her of the day we came to San Francisco.

The next clue came when I'd called Eddie out of the blue, just to see how my wingman was getting along at home. When my circumstances became known, he didn't let me off the hook.

" _Dude, you don't get it. Pixie's gonna stab you when she finds out you have another girl staying at your place."_

Once he mentioned it, it hit me that somehow the issue had not come up in the three times we'd spoken since summer break had started. For one of those times, Laura had been around, but when she overheard that it was Megan calling me, she made herself scarce.

How the hell had I held three hour-plus conversations over the phone with her without talking about having Saberwolf and Laura around? That was amazing.

"Megan's not gonna stab me. She doesn't even do that," I defended, for both her sake and my own, "What's the problem here, anyway? What if I had you and Hisako over for the summer instead? Would it still be the same thing?"

" _No, because I'd be the buffer between you two, or you would be between me and Hisako. But here, it's just you and Laura. Haven't you ever heard two's company, three's a crowd?"_

"Wolf is here."

" _He doesn't count. You know he doesn't count."_ Eddie shot back confidently, _"I normally trust your judgment, Bel, but I can't say much about this executive decision of yours."_

"Well, it wasn't all my decision. Mister Logan kind of strong-armed me into it."

" _Ooh, that's good. Use that as an excuse when it comes up with Pixie. Not much you can do with the Wolverine giving you an ultimatum."_

No, I couldn't use that as an excuse. It wasn't really much of an ultimatum I had been given. Mister Logan had just acted tough because he didn't know how to ask a kid for a favor, and it wasn't like I had a whole lot of problems with having Laura at my family's house. Besides, I didn't need an excuse. I could do what I wanted. No one controlled me.

I didn't see what the big deal was.

XxX

A few days into staying at my place in San Francisco, and my guests finally settled into the swing of the still life. Since I never slept, I was the only soul puttering around the house until someone else woke up.

The first person awake was usually Dad. Since he ran the theater, He was usually there from 11 in the morning until later at night on weekdays, so he got up early to get some stuff done before heading into work.

Basically, every morning, he'd hang out with me and eat breakfast in the living room. Mom hated that, but I'd be damned if I was going to eat by myself in the dining room or the kitchen at 6AM like some kind of chump.

Dad and I sat on the living room couch, listlessly eating bowls of cereal while the series I'd been binging on Netflix on-and-off with Saberwolf, "Have you been watching this all night?" He asked.

From right next to us, Wolf chimed in, eager to paint a negative picture of me, " _He_ has been watching this all night. I have been sleeping. This is normal."

I stopped chewing and gave him a funky sideways look, "No. I took a break at 3 to play games with _you_ and work out," He couldn't have thought I was lazy, "I'm not a couch potato. There's just not a whole lot for me to do that late."

"So you really don't sleep, ever?" Dad was still getting used to my powers and all they entailed, including my rampant insomnia, "Hell, if I were you, I'd use all of that dead time to learn some new skills. Be a renaissance man, boy."

I grinned at him and picked up my phone from the coffee table and wiggled it at him, "Funny that you mention that. I have a list."

Curiosity took hold and my dad had to take a look to see what was on It, "'Shit to Learn How to Do This Summer,'" He looked over at me and chuckled, "Hmm. Let's see. Learn an instrument? Not in this house. Learn to cook? Just don't burn the house down," My dad looked up from the phone again and gave me a strange look, "Learn to speak Japanese? Why Japanese?"

Why indeed?

"My teammate talks crap about me in Japanese all the time, right to my face," I deadpanned, "I _need_ to know what she's saying."

What kind of obscene shit came out of Hisako's mouth whenever we argued? I didn't know. She never told me. Also, Noriko was no help. Whenever she was around to hear it, she wouldn't spill the beans either, and to top it all off, last time I brought it up while she was laughing at whatever Hisako said, I got tazed. To be fair, I may have made a crude remark about how Japanese girls all stick together.

My dad was interested in my attempt to better myself, even if it was for petty reasons, "Really. How's that going?"

"Poorly," Wolf commented from the side of the couch.

Unfortunately, as Wolf had bluntly indicated, I had little positive progress to let my father know about, "I don't understand kanji… and I keep forgetting that you're supposed to read it right to left. Also, I don't get a lot of phrases. This is hard by yourself!"

"That's why you usually learn foreign languages in a group, or from a teacher," Dad said, tapping me in the side of my head, "Unless you became a genius while you were gone, I'd look into getting some help with that. You just said your friend speaks it."

I scoffed. After the pain in the ass she was with calculus? No chance, "I am not asking Hisako for help to study anything. Never again," I said.

Dad's eyes lit up, which put me on-guard. He had found an opening for something, "Speaking of your teammates, what the story with the girl upstairs?"

Ah, Laura. Of course. Mom and Dad probably had a pretty decent-length conversation when he came home the first night after I'd showed back up. If they did, it didn't go down around me, but I'd have been a fool to think they didn't talk about Saberwolf and Laura.

The crew had been at home for dinner the night before, and the atmosphere had been... strange, to say the least. Laura wasn't exactly talkative on a good day, and clearly felt out-of-place sitting at the table with us. Wolf was a good sport, though. He was respectful to my mom, answered her questions, asked her questions back. He conversed. A real gentleman. Easily nicer to her than he ever was to me, the bastard.

Laura didn't talk about herself at all. The most Mom could get her to say was that she was familiar with San Francisco, and what kind of classes she took at school.

I was driving myself nuts trying to think of ways to make her feel at home. Wolf had settled in nicely enough. I just wished I could do the same for her.

I let out a sigh and dropped my shoulders. Of course everyone was curious about the quiet girl. But there wasn't anything I could say, "It's not a pretty listen, Dad. I only know a bit of it, and it's more than enough of the picture to tell you that," It wasn't like I could just go about telling anyone else's business to begin with, "Besides, it's not my place either."

We all had our issues. It was up to us how we worked them out; whether we let other people help us or not. By this point, I probably had my share of them too.

Dad eyed me closely, completely ignoring the show on the TV screen, "I'm not going to say anything to your mother, but you look different."

I quirked my eyebrows, realizing this was going into a talk, and paused the show, "You know, Mom said that too."

"No, I mean you have a different look in your eye," He said, "What's been happening in that school?"

What was the right answer to that? I wasn't going to sit down and tell my parents that I'd been tortured and nearly killed several times. When I told them about the things that happened, they got the quick and clean versions. That was how I was going to keep it, "I don't even know where to start, honestly. How I got him might be the most believable story," I said, gesturing to Wolf.

Wolf took that as his cue to make his presence known, "It is all believable because it all happened," He pointed out.

I rolled my eyes in return, "I know that, Wolf. But we were there. You can't really explain that kind of stuff to other people who weren't. It's a hard sell."

I found a Wolf bot in the bowels of a secret hideout under Hudson Bay, manned by a crew of anti-mutant racists run by a cyborg. That was the gist of the story that my family got. It checked all the boxes they needed to know, sounded bad and extensive enough that they didn't ask more questions afterwards, and left out all of the nasty things they didn't need to know.

If Wolf had the vocal range to scoff, he would have, "You humans make everything so difficult. Sharing facts between one another should not be a complicated process."

"My point is-," My dad interjected to get things back on track, "-You look like you've been through some things. The way you walk and look around," He stopped and sucked at his teeth, "Whatever that girl's been through, she's ten times worse than you though, at least. Can't even make a sudden move around her without her flinching."

"She gets much better about that after she gets used to you," I tried to defend for Laura's sake.

"I just want you to be careful," Dad said with a deep sigh, "You said when you left that you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. Do you know better now?"

God, did I ever. I was still greener than goose-shit, but I was becoming accustomed to the chaos of being a mutant – of being an X-Man. Even if I wasn't one officially, I'd had a taste. More than a taste.

"I do," I told my father, reaching over to the side to give Wolf a solid pat, "And trust me when I say, whatever I've seen so far, it's nothing compared to Laura. Just... be patient with her. Laura's pretty weird, but she's a good girl. She won't cause any trouble," On her own, she would be just as much trouble as I was. Whether that was a good thing or not was up for debate, "It's just… she's my friend. My teammate. I don't think it's fair to leave her all alone for the summer."

Just like that, the atmosphere seemed to break. My dad got up from the couch and rubbed my head, "Always gotta be a sucker for the girls, don't you?"

I swatted his hand away. Not like it really mattered if he tried to screw with the curly mess I had up top, "Shut up, old man. It's your fault. I learned it from you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," My dad yawned as he walked away, "Stay out of trouble today."

"I haven't been in trouble since I've gotten back," I argued in return before looking over and nudging Wolf, "Who does he think we are?"

The lunacy of holding such a conversation with a wolfbot was not lost on me. This was my life now. My normal was now abnormal.

XxX

I did not have a car yet. This irked me. Yes, I knew how to get around the area without one, but walking the hills all the time was for the birds. Especially when I was traveling with others. Feet pounding the pavement once more, I led the motley trio consisting of guy, girl, and A.I. to whatever adventure the day had for us.

"We're going to the mall today," I said, trudging downhill grumpily, "There has to be something in this town that gets Laura's attention."

It was still my mission to put a goddamn smile on her face at least once, come hell or high water.

Laura interjected, offended at being talked about while she was around, "I am standing right here… again."

I looked back at her half-apologetically, "I know. But you're no help here. I've tried," I turned to my second tagalog, snapping at him, "Wolf! You're supposed to be smart and attentive. What have you noticed?"

"Nothing that will aid you in your endeavor," He said. If I didn't know any better, He sounded disappointed, "But is visiting a shopping mall really the best approach?"

I shrugged. True enough, malls weren't what they used to be, but there was enough variety to where we could find something, "Either that, or we sit home and Google shit until something comes up, but that's boring, right Laura?" No response, "…Laura?"

I turned back and saw Laura staring at a house across the street from where we were. It was one of the homes in the row, one that had been vacant for a while. About a year and a half before, it blew up. That had been scary, I remembered. Just a few blocks from my house.

"What's up?" I asked. Laura just remained still, staring straight ahead, "Hello? Laura? You there?" Wolf sat down in front of her and waved his tails to get her attention. That did the trick, "Are you alright?"

She realized that she had been staring and finally responded to us, "I am not hurt."

That wasn't what I meant. There was something swimming around in her head, and it wasn't good, "That's not what I mean," I said with a sigh before deciding to explain what I knew about that place, "That house. The family there died in an explosion a while back. I didn't really know 'em, but the girl who lived there rode my bus," What was her name? It was all over the place right after it happened – in the news and the school, "Megan Kinn-..."

That surname was familiar, because it belonged to the person who was with me. I trailed off and focused on Laura's face. She looked like she had seen a ghost, horrified that I'd made some kind of connection between her and the girl who lived in that house.

More than horrified, it looked like she was about to burst into tears, which stunned me more than anything else. It stunned me long enough that she took off running like a bat out of hell before I could do anything to try and stop her.

To say I was at a loss was an understatement, "Wolf, what was that?" I asked, reaching out for my metal cohort's support.

Wolf's tails drooped to the ground as he stood up and looked off in the direction that Laura ran in, "I do not know, Bellamy. But at the end, she was afraid. Very afraid. Right after you brought up that name," He pointed out for my benefit.

It wasn't even that. It had been the entire exchange, "What about before that? I've never seen her... cry," That had been surreal.

Wolf seemed to be at a loss. The nuances of human interaction were lost on him, "I do not know. I cannot read most human emotions. Fear is the easiest for my sensors to detect. It has more physical traits for me to pick up on. Others, not so much."

Not only him. Me as well. At least as far as this girl was concerned. She was a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, housed in a conundrum. The closest problem I had to compare it with was getting closer to Ruth, and at least she was completely willing to let me in, even though she wasn't entirely able to make it easy due to her circumstances. Even then, she didn't stone-wall me at every turn like Laura was.

Yet again, for the second time that day, I was reminded of Laura's sole request during a talk we'd had back at school. She had never asked anything of me before or since.

" _Please, be patient with me. I am… not good with people."_

"Fuck," I muttered to myself as her words repeated inside of my head. I wasn't going to give up on her, no matter how difficult she was, "We've gotta go get her now, don't we?"

Wolf nodded and shook himself out, as though he were preparing to be active, "That would likely be the correct course of action."

"Do you know where she is?"

"The mutant Laura Kinney is 3621 feet northeast from our location."

She was how far away? Good lord, that girl was in shape, "What? We've been standing here for how long? Three minutes? Four?"

"Three minutes, twenty-one seconds, to be exact," Wolf specified for me.

I knew Laura was in much better condition than everyone else on my team, except for maybe me, but I didn't expect that, "You're telling me she's on course to run a goddamn 5 minute mile?" I looked in the direction Wolf had indicated and got even more heated, "God, I _hate_ running uphill!"

And yet, I did it. Because that was how much I cared. Wolf, the asshole at heart that he was, didn't bother keeping pace with me. Even using my powers to speed myself up, he was still way faster than me and left me in the dust.

"I hate you so much!" I yelled at him as he started pulling away, "Fine! Screw this!" I channeled light energy to my fist and shot it at the ground underneath me to give me a boost up onto the rooftops. All of those parkour kids could fuck off. They wished they could do what I could.

Somewhere along the line, I'd lost him, but kept roof-hopping and searching regardless. I cleared entire streets trying to stay going in the same direction. I wound up hoofing it all the way to Russian Hill before I got a call from my wayward wolf friend.

"You've got some nerve calling after ditching me," I greeted him with the moment I picked up the phone, "Where are you?"

I said those things in jest, mostly, but it was no laughing matter once he told me why he was calling, "There are armed individuals nearby, gathered near Hyde and Lombard Street," Wolf said suspiciously, "I do not know why they are here. I have not heard any talk of orders."

That wasn't good. Even if it didn't involve us, we were way closer to any paramilitary action than I would have wanted, "Have you found Laura yet?"

"No."

I couldn't/wouldn't leave her behind for whatever bullshit was about to transpire, "Keep an eye on those guys, just in case," In case they started coming my way, "I'll get her myself."

"Hold on one moment," Wolf stopped me before I could hang up, "The mutant Laura Kinney is now 189 feet south from your current location."

So I'd gone a little bit past her? Very well. At least I'd dodged the goons with guns, "Cool. Be careful, Wolf."

"You as well," He said before hanging up. And that was it. Trouble was afoot, and we were stuck on the fringes of it, with potential to get sunk even deeper into it.

Off of the street, I finally caught up to my teammate at the old Lombard Street Reservoir that they'd turned into tennis and basketball courts. She wasn't alone. There was some muscular dark-skinned woman with black hair dressed in tactical gear that had _way_ too much of her cleavage exposed. Not that this was the first thing I noticed. No, the first thing I noticed was that she was armed to the teeth. Guns, knives all down her thigh. I mean, she had a crossbow. Who used a crossbow?

Speaking of the crossbow, there was an arrow in Laura's chest. Well, if that wasn't a dead giveaway to interject myself, I didn't know what was.

An open-handed blast exploded off of the woman, sending her sliding to the ground and into the chain link fence around the courts.

Laura looked at her assailant, then over to me, "No! You should not be here!" She seemed terrified out of her mind, even after I'd done something to step in. If one of us was in trouble, wasn't it better to fight together? "Leave! Run away!"

"Are you out of your mind? Not without you," I said, pausing to take another shot at the woman as she started to stand back up. Once again, it exploded off of her and knocked her down, but she got right back up, "Seriously? You can just take those head-on?"

The woman didn't answer me, instead seething to herself about getting ambushed, "...Gonna rip your guts out..." Been there, done that. The more important thing was, how was she still in one piece? Let alone still moving around.

Laura answered my unasked question, "Kimura is almost indestructible," She said quietly.

The word 'Indestructible' covered a lot of ground. There was no way that I couldn't actually hurt this person, "That was the same thing as a hand grenade going off in her face. Twice," I said before noticing the name she had dropped, "Wait, this is Kimura?"

She certainly seemed unpleasant enough with the sadistic sneer on her face. And she had basically shrugged off what should have been a critical blow from yours truly. It wasn't like I could pull my punches on an attack that exploded.

Kimura seemed positively livid. Too bad. I wasn't in the business of caring about people who messed with my crew, "Sorry. Laura looked scared, so I figured you must not be very friendly. If you are, m _y bad_."

Her anger temporarily gave way to the surrealism of some random kid coming out of nowhere in a red Street Fighter Zangief shirt to mess up her ambush, "Who the fuck are you?"

A fair question. One that wasn't getting an answer, seeing as how she was probably with the guys with guns Wolf told me about, "I'm with her. That's all you need to know."

Despite being outnumbered, Kimura didn't seem the slightest bit concerned, "This your boyfriend, X? He seems stupid enough," She spat hatefully at Laura, "I mean, your shitty little school sure didn't make _you_ any smarter," Done with hearing all of that, I shot her with another explosive blast. It worked as well as you would imagine, "What the fuck!" She complained.

I still had my hand up from aiming palm-first at her, "Sorry. Just making sure that didn't actually hurt you," And just to make absolutely sure, I shot her again.

"You done!?" She finally snapped at me. I responded with one more blast that knocked her back through the chain-link fence that had been weakened by several explosions, "Goddamn it, do you morons need an engraved invitation? Get in here!"

When she issued her order, I pointed my hand straight up into the air and fired a blast that would have been visible quite far away. Wolf wasn't that far away. Hopefully, he would realize that meant to get his ass in gear, seeing as how a phone call wouldn't have been prudent.

Kimura sat up properly, handgun pointed my way. I shot her as she fired and again made contact, but this time, she managed to wing me in the shoulder. It hurt, but by now, I'd had worse. Laura yanked the crossbow bolt from her body and launched herself at Kimura, claws out. Why bother having them out? She couldn't stab the woman with them.

In the meantime, I had to deal with armed jerks rushing toward the courts with assault weapons. Fortunately, they had to run up stairs to get to the courts, which meant I had the high ground. And to aim, all I needed to do was line my hand up with whoever I was shooting at and think. You can't dodge light once it's coming your way, people.

Of course, they still had automatic weapons, and I could only get so many before they started unloading in my direction. Once again, thankfully I had the high ground, so that gave me a chance to at least fall back before I got all shot up. And then, something amazing happened.

It had been such a long time since Saberwolf had been turned loose against flesh and blood targets. I had forgotten what a sight it was to see him tear through a crowd of enemies. He was as surgical as a near half-ton machine could be.

With that being under control, I turned around to give Laura some help, just in time to have her thrown at my face by Kimura. She hit and we both went down hard.

The woman sported a nasty grin as she held up her handgun at the two of us, "Well-well-well. X marks the spot," And... then she shot us. Well, she shot Laura. A few of the bullets went through and hit me though, so she essentially shot us both.

I flipped out immediately. It hurt like hell. I didn't even want to see where I'd been hit. I pushed Laura off of me and started shooting all over the place, trying to tag the vicious bitch that had done the deed. I think I may have hit her once. I do know that some soldiers that managed to get away from Wolf and make it up the stairs to help Kimura were met with their doom at my hands.

And then things went dark.

XxX

The soothing sounds of a moving automobile filled my ears first thing as I regained consciousness. As I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the face of Wolf looming over me as though he were about to eat me.

"You are awake," Wolf said, sounding as pleased as I figured an emotionless voice could. I tried to get up, but a heavy paw kept me down, "Do not move around so much. Your gunshot wound has healed, but I cannot judge your head injury."

I gently lifted his foot off of my chest and prompted him to move aside, "Did somebody knock me out?"

Wolf moved over as much as he could to give me space in our cramped confines, "Laura knocked you unconscious," He informed me.

"I am sorry for that," She chimed in from the front of the van. Van? Yes, this was the inside of a van. How'd we get a van? "I did not want to do that to you."

"Why'd you knock me out?" I spoke with a mushmouth. It had been a while since I'd been ko'ed. It still sucked.

"Because you had lost control of yourself," Ironically, the last time I'd been properly knocked out, another friend of mine had also done it, "Also, if I remember correctly, you heal quicker when you are unconscious."

She was right about that. I checked myself over. There were two bullet wounds on my body. One at my upper right chest, the other lower, underneath my pec. I knew this because there were two holes in my shirt, underneath, they were covered with bloody patches.

"How long have I been out?" I said groggily, wincing after touching the still stinging marks. However long I'd been down, it had to have been a while. The shots had healed almost completely from what I could feel.

"Longer than seven hours."

"Seven hours!? What the ffffuck?" I slurred numbly, pushing past Wolf to where Laura was driving in the front, "Where the ffffuck are we?"

Her eyes were locked onto the road, even as I fumbled my way into the passenger's seat, "Southern California. Just outside of San Diego. Please put on your safety belt."

Wait, what? We weren't in San Francisco anymore? Sure enough, I turned to look out the window and hadn't the faintest idea of my surroundings. That woke me up and properly reattached all the synapses in my brain.

So we were a third of a day away from my house. This was not good, "Laura, stop the van."

Request denied, "I cannot," She said resolutely.

My parents were going to kill me when they found out how far away I was. I couldn't think of an excuse for why I would be away so long to save my life. If I started heading back now, by the time I got back I could just brush it all off, "Why? Mom and Dad are gonna kick my ass later."

Just like that, any semblance of calm that Laura had left evaporated into thin air, "Because she has found me. Because she has seen you with me!" Her eyes were wild as she looked my way, "I told you to leave! But you did not! And now she knows we are together, and she will not stop, Bellamy!"

It was jarring to see her like that. And while it was nice to know that she had more emotional range than mild displeasure, it wasn't the time. She was the only one that had any idea of what was going on, "Alright, Laura. I need you to calm down. It's just the three of us right now. Tell me what's going on?"

It took a few moments for her to settle back down, but eventually she did compose herself and get me up to speed, "Kimura. The Facility," A grim expression crossed my face, "They have come. I knew they would. I always knew," She said more to herself than to me, "No, I cannot allow you to return to your home while they are there. She promised she would kill everyone I ever came into contact with. They did not know who you were. They would find out, and they would attack your family."

Which would be bad. Thankfully no one ever dropped my name, as far as I know anyway, "...So do you have a plan, or are we just running away forever?" I replied facetiously.

Laura shook her head in the negative, "We will not be able to run forever," I noticed she never said that she wouldn't have been willing to, "I am surprised that we were able to make it this far without being intercepted. We must find somewhere to stage a counterattack."

I looked around at our current situation, namely the fact that we were in San Diego, "And we had to drive eight hours to do it?"

Laura rationalized her thinking for me, "You were injured. And it would be unwise to continue fighting against them in San Francisco. If that is where they were deployed, they would have strategies, support, and more," She looked over at me as though I were a fool, "Why do you think the police never intervened?"

That was a tremendously good point. Armed men on the street in broad daylight, a gunfight not too far from one of the most famous streets in the city, and I didn't hear a single siren. So there went my future point of taking this to the cops. These people really were powerful then.

Alright. I needed to think. But first, I needed to know what I was dealing with from the perspective of someone who spent her life inside of it, "I think you need to fill me in more. On everything."

"I do not think this is the time," Laura replied far too quickly.

She didn't like that idea. Not one bit. And I understood, but now wasn't the time for sensitivity and understanding, "I think it's exactly the time. In fact, I don't think there's going to be a better time," She didn't respond, trying to occupy herself with driving instead of talking to me. I knew she was listening though, "Laura, we did it your way. I know you never want to talk about the things that happened, but right now it's right in our face. I can't just look past it after it put two rounds in me."

It sucked to force the issue. I didn't want to. Putting terrible things behind you sometimes had to be necessary to move forward. But when those terrible things were trying to grab onto your neck from behind, you had to turn around to try and shrug it off.

Laura was hesitant at first. Hesitant for a while, actually. I didn't expect her to go for it in the end, but eventually... "It will take time to tell you what you need to know."

We weren't using that as an excuse. I didn't care how long it took to tell. I would listen from beginning to end, as long as she was willing to talk, "How long until we get where we're going?" I asked, turning back to the A.I. hanging out in the back of the van, "Wolf, where are we going?"

"The border between the United States and Mexico. Estimated time to arrival at the current rate of speed is 47 minutes."

I didn't bother voicing my next, obvious question. Laura knew what it would be, "I will explain along with everything else," She promised, knowing I would want answers.

"No rush on that one," I told her, "Not like it matters at this point," We were basically already there. It would have been more trouble to turn around and go home than to finish going wherever the van was taking us.

I'd told my dad I was going to stay out of trouble. At least I didn't make any promises that I'd have to break.

XxX

The van we drove from San Francisco to the border was stolen, plus none of us had passports. There was no way we were going to make it across the border. Even if we had a car that was ours, and proper documentation, there was still Saberwolf chilling in the back.

It was startling how easily I went along with sneaking across the border. Laura seemed very certain that this was something we could both do, and that confidence rubbed off on me. What did that say about me, that I was alright with car theft, illegal border crossing, and manslaughter? Because I was sure we'd killed a few of those people after us back in San Francisco. Wolf definitely had.

Perhaps it was another one of those things that I could compartmentalize while it was happening, but later when I stopped and looked back on it reality would set in. Either way, I laser-cut our way through the fence under the cover of darkness and we went along our way.

So there we were. A boy, a girl, and a robowolf, spontaneously walking the streets of Tijuana at night in the swing of summer. What was my life?

"If my parents bring this up later, we stopped at San Diego," I said as the three of us trudged onwards, "We did _not_ go to Tijuana on a whim," It was hard to reconcile that we had even done that, despite the fact that we were there.

"Why?" Laura asked me in confusion

I scoffed, "They're going to kill me for this in the first place. At least let me have a fighting chance to get some forgiveness later," Under the street lights, I noticed that there was a difference to Wolf's gait than normal and stopped to check him over, "What's wrong, buddy?"

"I am feeling the effects of enemy gunfire from the last battle," Wolf told me, "I am not bulletproof, unfortunately."

Clearly. Saberwolf was not completely covered in metal, contrary to me calling him a metal wolf. If you looked closely, his metal was plating, and it could be fractured and broken. There was artificial muscle and tissue underneath that you could see as he moved. He was not a walking tank. He was not invulnerable.

I could see a few wounds on his legs. I had never stopped to wonder before if Wolf felt pain, "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Laura has already asked this. For the time being, no," Wolf said, "I would require the proper cybernetic technician, the same way that you would require the proper doctor to tend to your injuries."

I had been hurt and on the mend. Wolf had been hurt and would have to deal with it until we found a way to fix him, "So now what? Do we rest, or what?" I asked.

Laura looked to the two of us and shook her head, "No. You and Saberwolf rested enough in the drive to the border. We need to work quickly. I do not like our odds if we stop moving for very long. Kimura will find us."

I noticed that she hadn't included herself in her chain of reasoning, "Well, yeah, the two of us got rest. But I meant more for you. You didn't rest any," She had fought, found a way to withdraw, and drove all the way down south with the fear that an enemy was on our tail.

"I will be fine. I am not close to being tired yet," Laura assured me with a tiny smile, "My stamina is not as formidable as yours, but then again, I am also not a living solar battery."

"D-Did you just make a joke?"

"Did I? That was my simplification of your base ability."

Well, even if it wasn't a joke, I would classify it as one regardless. Baby steps, people. This girl would be properly socialized one way or another. How I took this as my responsibility when no one asked me to was beyond my ability to understand.

For some reason, she seemed more comfortable in the mix of things like this than sitting at a table with friends, sharing a meal. No, not for some reason. It was obvious exactly why, and it was sad how much sense it made.

But all of that could be saved for later. It wasn't the time to look at the person underneath the flesh and bone. Not when we were a pair of gringos and a walking weapon roaming the streets in the part of Tijuana that tourists dared not tread.

Of course, Laura had no trepidation to going inside of places and asking questions. What did she have to fear? Anyone with bad intentions, she would know what was coming and was capable of tearing them apart, without me or Wolf stepping in.

"You can speak Spanish?" I asked as she walked out of a seedy-looking corner store, "Of course you can speak Spanish."

"You cannot?" She asked me with a raised eyebrow.

I waved my hand in a wishy-washy fashion, "I have a high school fluency. That's just enough to keep me from getting arrested," That, or just enough to get me arrested, depending on what I said, "What'd you get?"

She pointed to a rather large hill that was easily visible from the low-lying buildings surrounding us, "Cerro Colorado," She told me, "That is where The Facility is emanating from in this area. I just needed to know where it was."

She had told me that she just wanted the lay of the land. To know where the enemy was coming from. Even so, I expected... something, "So this is all we came for? I'm going to get my ass chewed out for _this_?"

Laura did not respond to my query of a call to action, "We cannot attack them on our own. They came for me, so they will have measures prepared," She explained, "They will not capture you. You have nothing that they want. They will simply kill you."

Which would have been bad, for me and for her, "The three of us can't do it by ourselves," I concluded for her, "Well, the Paladins are spread all over the world, and who knows where Logan is?" I looked over at Laura to make a pitch, "We could call the X-Men."

Wolf spoke up, "I have already tried, when you were unconscious," From his reaction, for one reason or another it was a no-go, "We are alone."

Alone and out in the cold with a shady organization breathing down our necks. No one we could rely on to be able to handle it was around, so it was time to get creative with our responses.

If we couldn't rely on the clearly able, perhaps we could enlist the help of the likely willing. After a minute or two to have a think about our options, a possibility struck me, "Maybe we are alone. Then again... we aren't the only students on the west coast."

"What do you mean?"

I tapped my head and pointed toward the north, "First, we need to get back across the border. Second, we need to go to L.A."

XxX

A healthy amount of paranoia kept you alive. Although, when there was actually someone out to get you, it wasn't paranoia, it was caution. Laura's caution manifested itself in the form of having me take a different crossing point at the border fence, about a mile away. She figured she was durable enough to deal with whatever may or may not have been waiting on the other side until I or Wolf could flank the enemy, and I wasn't exactly equipped to argue. Thus, the little lady with claws served as the scout/diversion.

As she approached the little divot down off of the side of the highway on the U.S. side of the border where she had stashed our ride, she stopped and let out her claws.

 ***SNIKT!***

Wolf had been directed to follow not far behind, but stay out of sight. He also had his phone on speaker so I could hear everything. I had headphones in to minimize the sound I was making. Never leave home without a pair of earbuds, everybody. You never know when you'll need 'em, and they came in handy here.

A spotlight situated on the top of a military vehicle came on, shining bright on Laura. She winced and covered her eyes.

In front of her, Kimura sat on the hood of the vehicle with lots of armed men standing in front of her, pointing guns at Laura, "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you, X?" She said. The smug coming off of that woman could have been seen from space.

It was a bad situation, but Laura remained completely calm. She had foreseen this, "For a moment, yes. I did. Then that moment passed, and I asked my friend to do something for me before he left me alone."

Kimura let out a laugh. I don't think I had ever heard a more infuriating sound in my life up to that point, "Oh that's rich. He's your friend, is he? And he ran away?" She stopped laughing and jumped off of the car, pulling out a handgun for her own personal use, "I wonder what kind of face you'll make after I catch him and kill him in front of you. That sounds like a nice side-project."

I heard every word, loud and clear. Now where was I during all of this, you may be asking? Not far. Remember, I didn't cross that far away. I just staggered my crossing to go after Laura, to the point where by the time I did, she had their full attention. That gave me plenty of time to set up and watch over where she was going.

I'd gotten a decent headcount of how many guns there were by the time the ambush was exposed. Then they'd turned their flashlights on to level all of their rifles on Laura, and boy, did I see _everything_. That was when the boy who had been raised on action flicks and first-person shooter games for the majority of his life came out of me with a vengeance.

One guy at the back got a freaking laser beam through his head. He was the first. Before his body hit the ground I got another. That was when they all realized things wouldn't be so simple.

"Sniper!" One of the gunmen yelled as others started looking around trying to see where my shots came from. It took way too long. I plugged another two of them before someone realized that there was only one piece of high ground nearby that could oversee the concealed little gully they were set up in. Things got nuts from then on out.

"I asked my friend not to hold back. That you would not do the same for him," Laura said as Kimura seethed at her, "He agreed without hesitating."

Of course. I told her already – fuck these people. One good turn deserved another.

"Well, I'm not squishy like the rest of these clowns," Kimura shot back, "I don't need to drag you back in one piece!"

That was when I shot her in the head. It didn't go through, which was annoying, but it knocked her down and gave Laura a chance to keep from being swarmed by bad guys.

Laura told Wolf to stay back until his assistance was needed, seeing as how he was damaged. Also, the shock and awe effect of seeing him jump into the fray of a battle the enemy could hardly deal with to begin with would break the back of their assault. He was our reserve force. They were close enough to get reinforcements quickly, so my aim was to shoot anyone who looked like they might have been trying to peel off from the fight to call something in.

Kimura pushed herself off of the ground, holding her head. She probably had a pretty good headache. I might not have been able to shoot through her head, but I probably rattled her brain around in her skull pretty good, "Turn off the fucking spotlight! Use your flashlights!" She ordered.

Too concerned about my distance attack, Kimura panicked and forgot about the very small, very fast Laura Kinney. When the light went out, Laura went to work. In the dark, with her claws, she ripped people to shreds. I was glad it was too dark for me to see every detail. There was just enough moonlight for me to keep track of her moving around. When she would go up to someone, I would see a glint of light from the moon off of her claws, and then they would go down in some horrible manner. I couldn't even imagine the degree of bloodshed that was being wrought, and I had watched Mister Logan tear through the soldiers on Breakworld like toilet paper.

It wasn't like I had much room to talk. I made two holes in someone the circumference of my fingertip every time I shot them, whether it was in the head or not. Those things bled. I was hurting people too. Badly.

Once the numbers thinned enough, I got up and started running down the hill I was on in a dead sprint. I had a half-mile to get into the fray, and gunners saw me before I could close the distance fully. Laura covered my ass like a champ. Anyone that so much as leveled a rifle my way, she rushed over to them and cut something valuable off of them. In turn, anyone who tried to take her out when she did so caught an explosive blast from yours truly. I couldn't laser snipe while running, but that didn't make me harmless from a distance.

I could still shoot a fool from 50 yards out without batting an eye, and did. Several fools, in fact. It was in the process of doing this that I noticed my new favoritest person in the world slipping away from the fray.

Kimura could be the nastiest person on the planet for all I knew, but in the grand scheme of things, she was just like everyone else. First she tried to bully and terrorize whoever she could get away with it on. Then when you bared your teeth, she tried to fight. And when it all went south, and there was no visible path to victory, she would cut her losses and run.

And run did she ever. To hell with the guys fighting a losing battle against a boy and a girl with freaky superpowers. She fled right for one of the tactical vehicles that brought her.

Kimura yanked the door open and grabbed a radio in the dash, "Send it! Send the goddamn-!" She never got anything else out. I leapt in and dropkicked the door shut, sending her flying into the hummer and banging off of the door on the passenger's side. I punched a hole in the window and started shooting into the car at her, keeping her stuck upside-down in the floor, "You little fuck!"

She couldn't even push herself out, because I kept blasting her back down whenever she tried, "Laura, get the van!" I shouted.

She went to do so at first, but stopped. A sound from the north caught her notice, "Something is coming," She warned me.

It took a moment, but it soon got within my earshot as well. The sound of propeller blades. In the night sky, a helicopter came our way, lights underneath it scanning the ground trying to get a bead on us.

I shot out one before it got close enough to find the scene, but that was all I could get before it spotted us. It started opening up with machine gun fire, and I took cover underneath the hummer I'd gotten Kimura stuck inside of.

"Wolf!" I shouted. My earbuds were still in, and my phone was still in the middle of a call, "If you're in a decent enough spot and have any ideas, I'm listening!"

There wasn't a moment of thinking or hesitation on his part, "I have an idea. For myself. Exterminate."

What happened next would be burned into my brain as the marquee example of why messing with Saberwolf was a terrible idea for just about anyone.

If ever you saw an A.I. fly. Wolf absolutely _launched_ himself at a fucking attack helicopter with a chainsaw, and cut its tail off.

I saw this. With my own two eyes, I watched this happen, move-by-move. He ran up a steep part of the gully, used it to jump one-hundred feet in the air, and corkscrewed himself into position to lop off a chunk of the thing.

It was amazing. I was catching flies, my mouth was so wide open. What a sight. It all happened in a matter of six seconds. The helicopter crashing took fourteen seconds longer than it took for Wolf to actually take it down.

Speaking of the helicopter crashing, it came down in my direction, because I was lucky like that. I started clawing my way from underneath the hummer just as Laura got over to me to help yank me out. We both made it out safely just as the helicopter smashed into the ground vehicle, dragging it through the dirt and rocks with terrible groans and screeches of metal and earth.

An eerie silence fell over the area as Laura and I stared at the scene. Wolf softly padded up to the two of us to take in his handiwork. And for good reason. It was a job well done, "Did you mean to do that?"

I meant drop the helicopter right on top of where Kimura was. Wolf nodded, "Yes."

I almost fell over in shock. Yes, he was a machine, but that kind of precision was beyond anything I could think of. There was just too much to account for to intentionally make that work the way it did, "Really?"

"No," Wolf quickly admitted, bringing my opinion of him down. Granted, that still left it several notches higher than it had been before the fight, "It was... as you humans would say, 'a happy accident'."

Happy? I gave Wolf a certain look and pointed at the vehicular carnage before us, "...I was almost in that," I made sure he knew.

Wolf was unapologetic, "That is why it is a happy accident, and not a tragic one," He said, giving me a snippy reply.

Touche. It had, in fact, worked out. I wasn't hurt. The chopper was down. No one was shooting at us anymore. All was right with the world, except for one thing.

"Kimura is not dead," Laura made sure I knew. I couldn't see her, but she would know better than I would. Wolf didn't dispute her either, so I took their word as gospel, "Even that much is not enough to kill her."

Idly, I raised my hand and fired an explosive blast at the helicopter/hummer wreckage. It blew up in a ball of flames. We all just stood there and stared, "There. How about that?"

"I... do not think so," Laura asked, tilting her head as if she were trying to get a different angle of the inferno, "I have blown her up before. She did not die then either."

Well, maybe she would die of asphyxiation. We could only be so lucky, "Fuck it, let's go before more show up," I grabbed Laura's hand and we all took off for the van.

I didn't realize it at the time, what with my heart still going a mile a minute after the fight we'd been in, but later when I stopped and looked back on everything, something caught the mind's eye of my memory. Something next to insignificant.

It was the first time I had ever touched Laura that she didn't freeze up or react negatively.

* * *

 **Alright. The action is on in the west coast story arc. Our main man is in a violent pickle, but he's got an idea on where to find some help.**

 **So what's next? I dunno. Nothing I'm going to put in an author's note. You'll just have to wait a bit for the next one to find out.**

 **With that being said, I must bid you farewell for now. I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	21. Like Clockwork

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. My dad really wants to see Black Panther, because that's his favorite superhero, which is cool. I'm going to take him. I'm glad to do it. I just really hope that he's cool during the movie.

I don't need him nudging me and making comments on every little thing like he usually does during cool movies. That's not how I do in the theaters. Save that shit for afterwards, I'm trying to immerse myself in the film, old man!

 **Chapter 21: Like Clockwork**

* * *

My first real road trip wasn't to see some concert hundreds of miles away. It wasn't to go hang out at some distant beach. No, my first real road trip was done for the express purpose of not dying. Granted, that was a better reason for traveling hundreds of miles than any of the other ones I listed, but still, wasn't being a teenager supposed to be more fun?

Yet, there I stood, three o'clock in the morning at a Sheetz somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles, pumping gas into a stolen van. How could I have gotten away with this?

Somehow, I bullshitted my way into getting the all clear from my parents. I convinced them that I had planned to take Laura and Saberwolf to L.A., and that I had told them about this, but they'd just forgotten. They were busy enough that they believed me.

Not a lie, just altering the truth a bit. I did have aims to take my friends to L.A. at some point. I had a list of thing to do during our vacation that proved it. It just wasn't supposed to happen a week into our stay.

Laura walked out of the store with a bag full of foods that were mostly horrible for us, "I thought you did not need to eat," She said as she approached our ride.

"I don't, but I do," I explained, reaching into one of the bags to grab some fries, "I don't need to eat to live, but if I want to build any decent kind of muscle, I should. And when I don't eat, I am weaker than normal."

At least, these were the things that Dr. McCoy told me. We'd had a few sessions where he went over how my body changed after my powers manifested, trying to make sense of how I worked now. These were some of the conclusions he had come to after taking some time to study me, so I was taking it as fact. It was information coming from a person way smarter than me.

She nodded in understanding, before looking at the van, "Does Saberwolf require food for when he wakes up?" She asked, referring to the third member of our merry band.

I spared half a glance at our ride and scoffed, "He's a robot, Laura."

At that point, Wolf roused to life and stood, peering out of the open window at me, "I am an A.I." he responded automatically in offense to what I had said.

Duh. He only said it every time I made that mistake until I remembered. I only did it to prove a point, "I knew you were awake, faker," I said, pointing at him through the window, "I had to drive the last two hours all by myself."

"You did not need me to drive. Operating a motor vehicle is a one-man job," Wolf defended.

I felt like pulling a Zoolander and throwing gas at him, but then I'd have to ride with a gas-smelling Saberwolf for a few hours. It would have been even worse on Laura. In the end, I just continued to give out, "I could have used the company. Driving is boring and I've been looking over my shoulder since we left San Diego."

Wolf stuck his head out of the window and I shoved it back in, lest he scare someone who saw him. It was three o'clock in the morning, yes, but still, "You did not ask Laura to stay awake with you," He said, "She was in the front seat, and she is a superior conversationalist to myself."

That wasn't a high bar to set. They both sucked at small talk as far as I was concerned, "So what? She drove us down here in the first place. She was probably exhausted."

Laura walked around to the passenger's side to put our stuff in the van while I kept pumping gas, "I told you, I do not easily tire."

"And yet you were knocked out for the last hour," I offered as a counterpoint, "Just because you can go a long time without sleep doesn't mean you should. And before you say anything, I don't count, because I can't."

Filling up didn't take too much longer, and before any of us knew it, we were back on the road headed for Los Angeles once more. There hadn't been any trouble since we left Kimura to burn back at the border with Mexico, but one never could be too careful, so I took to liberal use of speeding to get us there faster. I hadn't attracted any attention from California Highway Patrol yet, which would have gotten us all arrested for the stolen van, so small miracles.

"How are you doing all of this?" Laura asked me out of the blue, just as I was becoming too bored to pay attention to the lines on the road, "I do not understand."

I looked over at her for a moment to find her studying me with a curious expression, "What do you mean?"

"This entire predicament," Laura continued to explain, "You are afraid. I can hear your heart. I can smell your fear. But if those methods were not available to me, I would not be able to tell."

First, Megan asked me why I was never afraid. Now, Laura asked me why I never showed that I was afraid. Two different questions, but in essence, they weren't that far apart, "Do you want me to freak out? To let you know I'm scared?"

Laura busied herself with looking out the window at the highway, arms crossed as she relaxed back in her seat, "Most people would. It is... normal."

I almost flicked her in the head, until she noticed my hand move and stared at it, "That wasn't what I asked you. Stop deflecting," I noticed Laura did that a lot. Instead of answering the question you asked, she would try to shift the topic just enough to move you away from what she didn't want to talk about, "I asked you, do you want me to make it obvious I'm scared?"

"No," She answered, "But I have never seen you show fear. I do not believe anyone on the Paladins have either."

Bravado was preferable to obvious terror. The latter did nothing for anyone, "Laura, I haven't had the luxury to show people I'm scared. Every time something's happened that scared me to death, there was someone else there who was scared too."

When the Reavers kidnapped me and I had to escape, Ruth was with me, and she was terrified. Crying, alone, unable to see anything in any way due to how they had blocked off her powers. She had been helpless for the longest time before I got to her. I had to step up by default.

When the Danger Room tried to kill us all, there was a room full of scared teenagers who didn't know what was going on. I'd already had my big freakout about it, and I was the only one who'd knew enough to get everyone as organized as possible. Again, I had to step up by default.

Granted, that still left the Ord and Breakworld situations. But I guessed all of that stuff had happened so fast, there wasn't time to be afraid of how big the situations were.

But then there was this brush with the Facility. None of those things applied here. These were well-armed, organized people. Laura had her wits about her, at least enough to make plans and react, so I didn't have to bear the full burden of keeping things on-track. There were plenty of lulls to think about what was happening, what had happened, and how much danger we were in, so the gravity of the situation had long since sunken in for me.

Maybe I was used to it at this point? Maybe I felt confident enough in who I had with me that together we would all be fine? Maybe I had snapped some time ago and just didn't care anymore?

"I will say though," I told Laura, "As much as it sucks for you, it's actually nice to know you get scared too."

Laura seemed a bit irked at the fact I took some solace in her feeling fear, "It is not myself that I am afraid for."

I spared a look her way before continuing to focus on the road. After all I'd actually survived, I didn't feel like dying in something mundane like a highway accident,"Sometimes I think you feel like you don't deserve to live," I said offhandedly, only to get a small growl in return.

Clearly, I had hit a nerve, because she was angry enough that I could actually see it in her, "I am not suicidal."

It had been a long day. If Laura was upset, I was cranky enough to not back down because of it, "Stop putting words in my mouth. That's not what I said," Like I told her, that deflecting shit wasn't going to fly anymore, "…Do you actually feel like you don't deserve to live?"

People liked to use the clone thing to compare Laura and Mister Logan. That wasn't fair. While yes, there were some similarities, there were a lot of other differences. For instance, when there was something Mister Logan didn't want to talk about, he tried to scare you off. Laura preferred to just clam up and refuse to say anything.

There was a reason for that. Whenever she talked about herself, specifically, anything that had happened in the past, there was a lot of pain there. Pain she couldn't hide.

Laura kept her eyes down as she spoke, "I have done terrible things. Killed so many people," A shuddering breath passed through her as she went into more detail, "I killed my first teacher, Bellamy. I killed my own mother."

I had no place to relate. I couldn't even try. Even now, I was just some stupid kid from the bay. I hadn't even seen a hint of this kind of world until a little while ago, "Not by choice, I'm sure. From the remorse, I'd say not by order either."

There was a bit of silence between us all as the only sound for a while was the radio playing. Eventually, Laura let me in on a little more, "Do you remember the vial you destroyed when you found me?" She asked, "Kimura threatened me with it. She told me she would find where I had been staying and make me kill the people I stayed with. The same for everyone at school."

I did remember. It didn't look like much, but hell, for all I knew, destroying it could have been dumb, "What's in it? Some mind control chemical? That's creepy."

"It is a chemical with a very specific scent. Unmistakable," Laura said, "I am conditioned to go into a berserk rage when I smell it. I will not stop until I kill whatever has the scent on it, no matter who it is."

A method of control more forced than the version she had already been subjected to?

"They MK Ultra'ed you?" Why? Wasn't she already conditioned to follow all orders and kill to begin with? These were some seriously amoral fucks, "Your background is more fucked up than I thought. And I never thought it was good to begin with."

Laura didn't disagree. How could she have? She had seen how normal people were raised, how they lived, "I am not a person to them. I am a weapon. At best, I am considered the same as a new species of animal bred in a laboratory," She said, "And I have not acted much like a person until recent years."

The more I heard, the worse I felt for speaking to her when we first became a team. I tried to make her believe everything would be okay eventually. I tried to show her that I was equipped to help her get past it. I was not. Not in any way. What was I supposed to do?

Listen. That was what. Listen to what she had to say.

Who else did she ever talk to about any of this? Logan, maybe? And how much even then? Because he didn't need to be told most of it. He was privy to the gist of it. He understood how Laura was treated, and could relate without getting the dirty details because of his own experiences. So the things she said to me went unsaid to him. They didn't need to talk about it.

I couldn't picture most of it. In my mind's eye, I had a very limited view of what she was telling me. So she had to explain, had to go into detail, had to delve deeper than she did with Logan. She had to actually talk about it to try and make me see, when she never had to before.

So I listened. Took things in from her perspective. I couldn't judge her the way other people probably felt they could have. This part of my being an asshole helped. Because I had no connection to anything she had ever done, I didn't really care that she'd killed. I never watched her do it. She hadn't hurt me. She hadn't hurt anyone I knew. She was my only connection to everything in her own life, and she was largely a positive one, so I would take her side.

Maybe that made me a fool? Maybe if someone knew this, they would see me as self-centered? Maybe they would hear this and wonder how I could be so callous in regards to the world around me? Was I heartless?

I don't know. I'm self-aware, but that doesn't mean I can justify myself to anyone else. We've all got our issues. Sometimes they leave scars. Ones you can't see unless you pay close enough attention.

So I listened. All the way into Los Angeles County proper. There was a lot to tell. And even though Laura hadn't wanted to talk about it, I'd never heard her speak more.

XxX

Our van would have been very out of place rolling down the streets of Beverly Hills. Also, if the Facility were closer to us than we wished, they would have found us very quickly. We ditched our ride a few miles outside of the neighborhood and grabbed an Uber.

To say that Beverly Hills was not a place for us was an understatement. A child assassin, a wolfbot, and a kid that would probably never see the money it took to afford a year's payment on some of these homes in his entire lifetime. How the cops weren't called on us before we found where we needed to go, I would never know.

Even when we rolled up to the doorstep – or front gates – of one Julian Keller, I felt for a moment that we would still be arrested when he came out to see us in-person.

"What are you doing here?" Were the first words out of his mouth upon seeing us. How rude. No asking us how the summer was going, or anything like that, "What the hell is with your clothes?"

He could have been referring to the bullet holes in my shirt, the dirt, or... who knows what else I'd gotten on me from the fight the night before.

"Hi buddy!" I greeted Julian brightly. Black iron bars separating us between the street and his family's home property. From what I could see through the gate and up the driveway, it was quite the place, "Man. You really are rich as fuck, aren't you?"

Keller Pharmaceuticals was a thing. It took a while for me to be privy to how big of a thing it was since – being the strapping young buck I am – I never needed medicine.

"What the hell, Marcher?" Julian let me have it from his side of the gate, "You can't just come to my house. Wait, how do you even know where my house is?"

Julian didn't loathe me the way he did at the start of the semester, but we weren't close enough for me to just turn up out of the blue. To be fair, I don't know anyone who would have been cool with that.

"You live in Beverly Hills. That was all we needed. Well, that and-," I reached out and gave Laura's nose a squeeze, "Honk-honk," I had to stop and look at Wolf in amazement, "I can't believe she actually let me do that."

Saberwolf agreed, "I cannot either. I expected her to cut your fingers off."

It seemed to be at this point where Julian noticed that I had brought company. First he looked at Wolf, then over to Laura, who he had much less familiarity with, "The clone smelled me out like Wolverine? That's fucking creepy. Don't do that again, you hear me?"

The guy was harsh on people he didn't know very well. And Laura had always been antisocial, to be nice about it. Whenever I interacted with the Hellions or anyone else not affiliated with our team, she was never around.

She took the impolite acknowledgment of her presence in stride though, "Not just you. Your entire team. It was not difficult once we got close enough."

Julian stared her down until he realized he wasn't going to make her flinch. With a sigh, he turned back to me, "Seriously, what's going on?"

I reached out and tried to shake the bars of the gate, "We'll tell you inside. Right now, I really want a shower and a change of clothes, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. I mind a lot," Julian shot back before just giving up, "Whatever... come on."

With that, Laura, Saberwolf, and I were let onto the Keller family premises. Julian's folks were gone, which could have been seen as a good thing. I doubted we would have gotten past the front gate had they been present.

I was careful not to touch anything. To give you an idea of what I was dealing with, the foyer when we walked in could have doubled as an art museum in a small town – full of paintings and even a few statues for guests to observe. And that was the first room we saw. Saying Julian had a silver spoon in his mouth would have been conservative. Gold or platinum spoon would have been more apt.

I'm man enough to say that I was jealous. I don't even know what I'd do with that much money, and knowing that I would be getting more indefinitely. I would die trying to spend that shit.

Julian stopped us in front of a door and rapped his knuckle off of it, "Here you go. Shower up, and be quick. I seriously need to know what this is all about."

I nodded and gestured with my head for Laura to go inside while I went off to look for another shower. Julian grabbed my shoulder to stop me, "No. Uh-un. You guys use _one_ bathroom," I gave him a look that he reacted to, "Come on. I can't just let you guys run around my house by yourselves."

"You let your team do it," I shot back, believing I had a point.

"Are you my team?" Julian gave me as a rebuttal, "Besides, I don't. I have Santo supervised 24/7. I don't need him wrecking up stuff in my parents' house by accident."

My last attempt was to throw myself on some existing sense of camaraderie, "Come on, man. It's me. Doesn't that mean anything?" With his lack of reaction, I didn't need him to answer that. In the end, I waved it off and turned to Laura, "You go first. I need to think."

She went in, and Julian went off with Saberwolf, presumably to find the others. That left me to slump up against the wall and sit on the floor, alone with my thoughts.

I didn't know what the hell I was talking about when I said I needed to think. Think about what? Once again, I was out of my depth when it came to something like this. But I needed to be ready with some kind of pitch to get the Hellions' support. We weren't at odds anymore, but we weren't as tight as I thought either, even after the end-of-semester party.

And here Laura said I was good with people. Clearly I wasn't _that_ good.

Also, how to go about informing them on what was up was also an issue. This was Laura's story, and it was admittedly very ugly. While it was not my place to explain it all, this was a problem that I was theoretically going to ask the Hellions to deal with. It was why we were here to begin with. We didn't have any options, and I didn't want to keep anything from them. I didn't want to deceive anyone into doing anything dangerous.

This was Paladin business. Even if the Paladins currently consisted of me, Laura, and freelancer Saberwolf. But it was that mindset that was making this so hard in the first place. It was what turned common rivalries into the kind of obnoxious animosity that the Hellions and the New Mutants had. The kind that I used to have with Julian for a short time.

While I thought to myself, Laura came out and tapped me on the shoulder, dressed in the new clothes we'd managed to pick out, "It is your turn," She told me.

From where I sat on the floor, I glanced over and looked her over. I'd gotten a few outfits for us, and out of what she had, she'd picked a little pair of black shorts and a black t-shirt with a tiny cartoon of Jason from Friday the 13th on it.

Getting clothes for Laura was weird. She didn't know what she liked. When I asked her why she wore the clothes that she did, she told me someone else had shopped for her before and she just followed that archetype.

Whatever. I didn't know anything about girl clothes. I'd make Hisako do something about it later. It did seem like it worked though. Some brighter colors might have made her seem more approachable, but to be fair, she did look good in dark-colored clothes. I made note of such.

"You look good in that," I told her as I stood up and stretched, "I can't believe you were wearing black jeans in the summer. Weren't you hot?"

Laura looked herself over, tugging at the fabric of her shirt as though she were checking it over, "I will pay you back."

"Don't worry about it," I waved her off as I headed into the bathroom, digging through my bag to find what I was going to change into, "I've got money to blow. Not as much as our good friend Julian, but I've got some cash saved up from working at the theater."

"Have you come up with any ideas on how we will fight them?" Laura asked, leaning against the doorframe, her head peeking into the bathroom, "You said you needed to think."

So she had believed in me when I'd said that? Too bad. She probably shouldn't have, "I can think of whatever I want, Laura. I barely know what I'm doing," I admitted, "Simulations and all of that crap will only take me so far."

Laura closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "I am familiar with this sort of thing," She said confidently.

"That's what I'm counting on. But you've seen the Hellions. Do you really think they're going to listen to us?"

Her eyes shot open and she glared at me, "Why did we come here then?"

My plans weren't perfect, but at least I was trying something. I was willing to take suggestions if anyone else came up with any, "Because if the X-Men are tied up in something, we don't have a lot of options for help," I picked up my phone and wagged it for emphasis before throwing it over to her, "I called them while I was sitting outside. Like Wolf said yesterday – Nothing."

Laura stared down at my phone in her hands and frowned, "I do not like this," She said, "If it were just me, that would be one thing. But it is you, and now them."

She didn't want the Hellions involved. She didn't want me involved to start with. But as badass as she was, she was one person against an organization that knew how to deal with her. That did not make for a successful formula, "If it were just you, even if I was with you, it would be even worse. I want us to have as much of a fighting chance as possible."

I wanted to live. I wanted her to live. I'd told her what I thought about her opinion of her self-worth. It didn't bear repeating. But even if Laura didn't feel like she deserved to be alive, I wanted her to be.

Laura gave a deep sigh, but decided to leave things at that, "I understand. I will find Saberwolf and Julian."

Laura slinked away and shut the door behind her, leaving me alone in the bathroom to shower. Good. I could take a few minutes to turn my brain off. No one to fight. No one to look over my shoulder for. Marginally safe.

I let out a sigh as the warm water hit me. For the time being, I'd take it.

XxX

After my shower, I felt more refreshed, but no closer to thinking of a way to solve my troubles.

The entire team of the Hellions was out at the pool, hanging out in their swimsuits, sans Sooraya and Kevin. Sooraya, because she wouldn't show her body in front of men for religious reasons. Kevin, because if he touched anyone with his bare skin, they would die.

In my opinion, both were perfectly reasonable reasons to keep from partaking in pool activities.

"Hey, Marcher really is here!" Santo pointed out from the pool, being the first to see me come outside. I waved to everyone I hadn't seen yet, "Yeah! Another party! Let's go!" He demanded, thrashing his arms about.

"No more parties, you idiot," Julian replied from where he was lounging in the water, covering his face from being splashed, "Marcher, the clone, and the robot are in trouble."

Cessily swam up to Julian and gave him a swat on the arm, "Her name is Laura, Julian. Don't be rude."

"And I am an A.I.-" Wolf specified out of annoyance, relaxing safely away from the water with Sooraya and Kevin, "-Not a robot."

"What's this about you being in trouble?" Brian asked, finally listening to what any of us had to say, "And you came _here_? Dude, we're not that close."

I knew that. I didn't need the reminder, "We didn't exactly have a lot of options," I said, shooting Brian a dirty look, "We're not even going to be here long. We just came to ask for help. If you say no? Well, that's it and we're out of here. We'll figure out something else."

"Wait," Santo demanded, climbing out of the pool to walk up to me, water sliding off of his rocky frame, " _You're_ actually asking _us_ for help? You? Mister 'Fuck-Everything-In-Eyeshot-With-A-Light-Bullet'?" He asked in mock disbelief, "I didn't think I'd ever see the day."

"It's more like beams of light than bullets," I said, before getting sidetracked in thought. Could I shoot bullets? I could make grenades. Would it make any difference if I could? None of that crap mattered, "…But yeah. I need help."

"I'm not loaning you any money, dude," Julian deadpanned from his spot in the pool, keeping himself just on surface of the water with his telekinesis, "I'm on thin ice with my parents already. I've got to try and keep my head down for the vacation."

"We do not need money. There is someone trying to kill us," Laura declared sternly from the side of the water, "Well, kill Bellamy and Saberwolf. They would prefer to capture me."

Everyone looked over at her in surprise, then back to me in shock, "Something's trying to kill you _again_?" Santo said, "Man, and I thought we got into our share of crap."

They may have gotten in more trouble, but our trouble was usually bigger, "It's a long story."

"Cliffnotes version, if you don't mind," Cessily requested, pulling herself out of the pool as well, now that things were serious, "Short and sweet seems to be the best way to tell us about this stuff."

Alright. If Laura could be blunt, I could absolutely match her on that front, "The short version is that mean, nasty people are after her. I shot the bitch in charge in the face. It didn't hurt. She shot me back with a gun. It REALLY hurt. We've been running for the last day trying to figure out a way to deal with her."

"Can't you just beat her up and leave her for the cops?" Kevin pointed out from the comfort of shade, "People say you've done stuff like that before."

I gestured his way, as he would have had a point had it not been for something I'd already brought up, "Note the 'shot her in the face' part. We can't keep her down," I jerked my head Wolf's way, "He dropped a helicopter on her and we're not sure it did the job."

"The helicopter in question also exploded," Wolf chimed in from close to Kevin's feet, "We are still skeptical that the mercenary known as Kimura is dead."

If I didn't have Julian's attention, I sure did now. He looked impressed, as though he were seeing Saberwolf in a new light, "How did you drop a-?"

"Julian! Cliffnotes!" Cessily was the team member that had her eye on what was prudent. Namely, what they may or may not have been getting into, "Do you have anything else, Bellamy," She said sweetly.

The least I could do for her cordiality was keep to her parameters. Per the metallic girl's prompting, I wrapped it up, "Add onto the fact that she apparently has a bunch of fuckers with automatics at her beck and call... after what happened last night, the next time around she's probably gonna try and hit us even harder. That's all I've got for you."

"I'm in," Julian barely let me finish briefing them before he volunteered himself to help us, "Oh, yes. Yes-yes-yes, I'm _so_ in."

Brian kept floating around in the pool, even when Julian levitated himself out to dry off, "Julian, I thought you said you were trying to keep us from making a scene or causing any trouble," He said.

Julian scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, trouble around here, like in Beverly Hills. The kind of trouble that could get back to my parents. I never wanted us to stay cooped up in the mansion all summer," He said to his teammate, "They're never even gonna know about this! And even if they did, so what? This is superhero stuff! Who would be embarrassed by their kid kicking ass like the good guys?"

Kevin's expression changed. The boy who brought death with a touch liked the sound of being a hero instead of something for people to watch out for, "We are the good guys in this, right?" He asked to make absolute sure, "I don't feel like getting tricked into doing villain stuff."

Laura seemed offended at the possibility that the Facility could ever be on the side of right, "Our enemies kill for hire and perform unethical, illegal experiments on humans and mutants. No. They are definitely not the 'good guys'."

That was all Julian needed to hear, "You heard the clone! Which means we, by default, are! The good guys, I mean."

Cessily didn't have pupils for me to be sure, but I was certain that she had rolled her eyes. Body language was everything, "Nice, Julian. Way to translate for us," She said sarcastically.

Julian tried to appeal to her sense of accomplishment, "Come on, Cess, this is what the Hellions were made for. You can't seriously want Marcher to get all of the glory for this too."

I took offense to that. I didn't look for all of this to keep happening to me. It just did, and it just so happened that my only two options were to roll over and die, or fight it, "What glory? Jerks keep trying to kill me, and I would prefer that didn't happen."

Santo grabbed me by the shoulder and gave me a good, hearty shake. He almost took it out of the socket by accident, "Whatever. Don't act like all of the stuff you've been doing didn't get you laid."

"It did not."

"So you and Pixie didn't hook up?"

Ol' Rockhead had me at a loss, because that did happen. And more people were privy to it than I first thought, "...Not because of that!" I argued back, "We're students, not celebrities. Take that stargazing bullshit somewhere else."

Laura, of all people, came to my rescue, "That is not a concern," She said, a sharp tone in her voice that got everyone's attention, "There are more important things to deal with right now."

Julian agreed, and made to whip his team into fighting form, "Right! Hellions, get ready to roll out! We've got to help Marcher, otherwise he'll get himself, the robot, and the clone all killed."

"I am an A.I./Oh, fuck off," Wolf and I both said to Julian, overlapping each other before staring across the pool at each other as the Hellions all started to vacate the pool area to prepare themselves. That left me and my cohorts to do the same.

I went to head back inside when Laura grabbed my arm to stop me. When I turned to face her, she had a troubled look, "What's the matter?"

"Do you remember when you asked me to tell you when I feel upset with you?"

"Yeah?"

"I feel upset with you."

And with that, she passed me by without looking back. I was stunned. This again? I couldn't believe it. At least this time she had the courtesy to tell me about it. As Wolf padded over to me, I shook my head, "What in the blue hell did I do now?"

"Perhaps it would be best if you left the matter alone for now," Wolf suggested, "There will be plenty of time for you to sabotage your personal relationships with others once we survive our current ordeal."

Why did none of my friends respect me? Seriously. I needed to know.

I shoved Wolf from behind with my foot, but he didn't budge very much, "Metal son of a bitch," I cursed.

Wolf, ever the smartass, didn't miss a beat, "Your insult is ineffective. I do not have a conventional parentage, therefore am no one's son. Nor do I have a mother who can be construed as a 'bitch'."

I wished Wolf wasn't as good as he was at disarming my slights and insults, because I could almost never do it back to him. And could he teach Laura about casual conversation and banter in my place? Because apparently, she was goddamn mad at me again!

XxX

I didn't know what kind of preparing the Hellions needed to do. It wasn't like any of us had our team outfits to squeeze into for the sake of doing this crap. As far as I knew, Julian didn't have a Keller Family jet-o-doom the way the X-Men had the Blackbird, so what the hell were we hanging around for?

I was antsy. Laura was antsy. We both knew that the longer we stayed in one place, the more dangerous it was. Being behind gates, even in a public place like Beverly Hills wasn't going to keep someone away if they really wanted to get at us. The addition of six extra superpowered teenagers was a better deterrent, but even that wouldn't keep for long.

As Julian said, we wouldn't be allowed to hang out there all summer long. I didn't even want to in the first place. Damn his family's property though. When I peeked out the windows, I could barely see off of the property. The line of sight in this place was terrible. If anyone decent was sneaking up on us, I wouldn't know.

Giving up on spotting any sign of trouble for the time being, I left it alone. Walking through one of the parlor rooms where most everyone was gathered, I gave Kevin Ford a pat on the shoulder. He flinched, a lot like Laura used to, though it was because he was afraid he would kill me. Not with two layers of synthetic clothing between the skin on his arm and anything else. I said something about summer for Laura. Summer for this guy had to be god-awful.

"Are you sure your whole team is down for jumping into this mess?" I asked Julian as he lounged around with Santo and Brian on some couches.

Julian gave me a flippant look in return, "Hey, we're all in the same training program you are. Just because you get shot off to space with the X-Men to fight aliens doesn't make you better than us."

That hadn't been what I was getting at. Truth be told, none of us were qualified to be handling this ourselves, "I'm just saying, man. This is gonna suck. I don't want anyone to get involved if they really don't want to," I looked around and noticed a few absent members of the group – Cessily, Sooraya, and Laura, "What about Sooraya?"

I didn't talk to her much. A lot of opportunity for it didn't come up. We were the least acquainted out of the members of the Hellions. The Muslim girl was very passive and quiet. Comparably so to Laura, except that Laura had carte blanche to call me on my bullshit whenever she found it appropriate, and exercised that right.

Julian shrugged it off as an afterthought, "She didn't say she was against it."

"She didn't say she was up for it either," I rebutted.

This was of little or no concern to the guy in charge, "It doesn't really matter. I call the shots, and I say we're in."

This was a case study in the contrast between our teams. The Paladins and the Hellions ran differently. I knew this. Everyone that observed us for five minutes knew this. Our leaders and our teams were reflections of how we were put together and what we were meant to do in the first place.

For my team, I might have been the leader, but I listened to everyone else. If I gave an order that someone else wasn't onboard with, and it wasn't a matter of life and death, I heard them out. It had to work like that, because the way we were set up, there were a bunch of different uses for us. We could kick ass, or we could do more subtle things than that if it was needed. Versatility, people. We morphed according to the situation, so as a leader I had to be flexible and adjust.

With the Hellions, the buck started and stopped with Julian. As a team, their tactics weren't bad, but they weren't strategists. They were a shock team; students put together in such a way that they could and would overwhelm you quickly. They were the best when it came to direct combat, and that was where they were focused. With that focus, they were led by a single individual. Julian was the strongest of them, both in personality and with his powers, because that was what they needed.

For the sake of getting into a big fight, if I had to choose a team of students to back us up, there was none better. It remained to be seen how things would go if it wasn't that direct a solution for our problem, because I sincerely doubted Julian was going to fall in line behind me without a gun literally pointed to his head.

We all gathered out front, prepared to set out as a unit. Eight of Xavier's students and an A.I. originally built to hunt mutants. What a cluster.

I cleared my throat and addressed the lot of them, "Alright, friends, acquaintances, and whatever the hell Julian Keller is supposed to be-," I ignored the middle finger put up in my direction from said individual, "-We're heading to TIJUANA, MEXICO!"

Brian and Julian's eyes went wide as they looked at each other in surprise, "Awesome!"

I knew that would get a few of them stoked. Santo threw his bag a hundred feet into the air, not bothering to catch it. Hopefully nothing fragile was in there, "Fucking, arriba! I've turned the corner on you all the way, Marcher. I love your team."

He went to high-five Brian, which was a bad idea for the latter. Smacking solid rock moving your way as hard as possible, not a smart idea.

Off to the side, Kevin leaned in to speak to Saberwolf, "Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"

Saberwolf didn't mince words, "Yes. More than I expected when I agreed to stay with Bellamy."

My attempts to get the masses pumped were thwarted by Laura who grabbed my arm and shook her head, "No. Not Mexico."

"What? What do you mean, 'not Mexico'?" I asked, "You said they had a base in Mexico."

Laura's brow furrowed in discomfort as she wondered how to say what she wanted, "I... have been thinking. That was a trap that Kimura set for us," She said, just loud enough for me to hear, "The only reason she did not attack us when we went to cross the first time was because we traveled from San Francisco quicker than she had anticipated."

I needed a moment to take stock of what I had just heard and process it all, "Wait. So, she fought you the first time, trying to get you to take a red herring to go to Mexico, so she could ambush you again."

Someone was clearly playing 4D chess while the rest of us were playing checkers.

Laura dissuaded that line of thinking, "No. She did not intend for me to escape the first time. She planted intelligence I would try to use on the off-chance that I would get away," As she told me all of this, she sounded miserable, "...She knows me very well. Better than anyone."

I gave her a poke on the forehead, "Another reason why doing this yourself would have been dumb," I couldn't help but add while I thought of our current situation, "So I can't pick your brain," Anything she knew had been stuffed into her head by Kimura, and if it hadn't been, Kimura likely knew the same operational procedures Laura knew.

"As far as trying to determine a course of action, probably not," She admitted, her head down, "I am sorry."

No. There was no need to apologize for that. She didn't do anything wrong. It only served to reason that someone who spent most of your life beating the piss out of you and dishing out orders to you would have a good idea of how you would react in certain situations.

But in that same vein, Kimura didn't know a fucking thing about the rest of us and what any of us would do. That much was clear when she thought I'd cut and run back at the border.

"It's okay. We'll handle it," I assured Laura before turning back to the crowd. It was here that another problem reared its ugly head, "So, how are we getting around?"

The sight of all of the Hellions looking at each other in confusion was a bad sign, "Wait, what do you mean?"

I drew back, not expecting that response, "What do you mean, 'What do I mean?'" I replied, "What are our wheels looking like?"

Julian walked forward, arms crossed obstinately, "You came here to get us. What do you got?"

I had nothing. We had ditched the van we'd come to L.A. with hours ago, and even if it hadn't been found by police yet, I was done pushing our luck with that stolen vehicle.

I held my hand over my face. I could feel a migraine building, "You're telling me that we have to walk like a bunch of chumps?" I snapped, "You're rich! Don't you have a stretch hummer or a private jet or something to take us all somewhere?"

Granted, that wasn't exactly discreet, but it would definitely fit us all. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

My attitude wasn't appreciated by my 'host', "Lay off, Marcher! I told you, I'm on thin ice with my parents!" Julian quieted down and looked away for the next part, "...Besides, they took the jet to go on vacation."

I threw my hands up in defeat, "Great! So, I'll just call an Uber for all _eight_ _of us!_ "

"You're the one that wanted our help!"

Before we could get deeper into our worthless argument, Cessily pushed both of us apart, "Both of you, cut it out already!" She turned to me, "Bellamy, how did you guys even get here?"

I jerked my thumb in Laura's direction, "She stole a van that we rode all the way to Mexico and back up here."

"Could she do that again?"

"Cess!" Kevin exclaimed, not wanting to play party to a crime.

Cessily turned toward him and shrugged it off, "It's not like we have much of a choice if we want to go anywhere. Julian can't fly all seven of us to wherever we're going."

"Boo," Santo complained, "This sucks. Can't you transform into a motorcycle or something?" He said to Wolf, who again, was not a robot.

Wolf batted his tail around in annoyance, "No. And a motorcycle would only carry two people at most."

Fine. We were serial car thieves now, it seemed, "Laura, take somebody with you and go get us a ride of some kind. We'll be... not here when you do."

We didn't need to pick up the Hellions in a stolen car in front of his parents' house if he was already in hot water.

Santo perked up and raised his hand like he was in class, "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" He wanted to be a part of a felony.

She ignored Santo's attempt to lobby his way into helping, "I would rather bring someone more inconspicuous," Big, green eyes turned to me hopefully, "Bellamy?"

Goddamn it. I was such a sucker for girls, it wasn't even funny. I melted immediately.

"Right," I agreed, "Well, I didn't see how you did it the first time, so I might as well."

Laura didn't even do it on purpose either. If she ever learned how effective that look was, I would be in trouble. It would get me every time. And hadn't she just told me she was mad at me? It hadn't been an hour. What happened to that?

XxX

I was an accessory to two crimes. The same crime, just different executions of it actually – stealing a car. Granted, I wasn't awake and had no role in it the first time, but I still benefited from it. The second time, I absolutely stood by and watched Laura use her claw like a slim jim tool on an old van to open the lock in a matter of seconds.

"Huh," I said as I watched her scoot over to the driver's seat to pop off the cover to the steering column to get to the wires, "For some reason I thought you'd do something more subtle than that to get in."

"Subtlety is not a substitute for speed when it comes to stealing a vehicle," Laura said as she engine flared to life, "Get in. We must go."

Not wanting to be caught out in the open stealing a motor vehicle, I hopped inside and kept my eyes peeled for anyone who might have seen us as Laura pulled off, "You think this thing is big enough for everyone?"

Laura nodded, keeping her eyes on the road like a diligent driver, "Whichever two sit in the rows with Santo and Saberwolf will be tight, but it should be fine."

Maybe so, but that didn't mean jack if we didn't have a real plan. We'd just be driving around in a hot car until something came up, "Sure, but we don't even know where we're going next-," Before I could express that point, my phone went off, "Yo."

" _Marcher!"_ Brian shouted in my ear. In the background I could hear a mishmash of noise, including screaming and gunfire. My blood curdled, _"People are here and shooting!"_

I should have known. Saberwolf was really recognizable. If anyone was looking for us and spotted him, there was no question that he was the thing that had been with us, "Alright! Alright! Where is here?"

" _I don't know! We didn't get that far from the house, maybe a mile or two? Hold on!"_ Brian stopped talking for a moment. I heard footsteps, yelling, and more sounds of deadly fighting, _"Hellion says Parklabrea! He'd know better than I do!"_ He said, using his leader's codename.

I was already punching in the general location in Google Maps before he finished his sentence, "You got a more exact location than that?" I asked before leaning over to Laura, "Head west."

With a hard look in her eyes, Laura turned the car around in the middle of traffic and took off in the direction of certain danger.

" _No. We were gonna knock around for a bit, and Wither wanted to see a museum nearby, so we were heading there,"_ Brian said, _"Trust me. When you get close, you'll know."_

I didn't like the sound of that, but he hadn't said anything about anyone being hurt or dead, so we had that to go off of.

As we got closer, I realized what Brian had been talking about when he told me I'd know when we were close.

I saw a large, silver aircraft hovering in the air above the city street. Something told me it wasn't exactly cleared to be in Los Angeles airspace, "Is that a gunship? They have a gunship?"

Laura sped straight ahead down the street where everything seemed to be going haywire the most, "They have everything," Without warning, she turned off of the street onto a sidewalk underneath where the aircraft was.

Every second that went on, I hated the situation more. Whatever had happened, the Hellions had fallen back to a park for more cover and space for a fight. The problem with that? The park was surrounded on all sides by tall buildings with sidewalks leading in and out serving as choke points.

Remember when I said tactical brilliance wasn't ever their strong suit? And that was setting aside the fact they were a bunch of teenagers like me, panicking that they were getting shot at.

Laura was merciless, though. The moment we started riding along one of the sidewalks to get into the park, she drove straight through a group of guys with expensive-looking high-tech suits covering them from head-to-toe. Some of them had heavy armor with weapons that were parts of their suits; automatic weaponry in their arms and cannons on their backs. It was some serious sci-fi stuff.

It didn't help them from getting turned into roadkill.

I must say, in my two recent encounters with graphic violence, I was saved from actually seeing the worst of it. The night before at the border, it had been really dark for most of the fight, so I didn't get the best view of Laura slicing and dicing soldiers up, nor of me putting holes in them and blowing up faces. And here, these guys were covered in futuristic armor, so while the impact of a van hitting them might have been messy _inside_ , I didn't have to look at it from the outside.

Laura pulled over the second we saw the first Hellion in peril and we both jumped out. My hands were glowing, and her claws were out. Anyone in a shitty spaceman suit caught an adamantium blade or more light than they ever wanted to have touch them. That was only enough to clear the way to help one person though.

Kevin had been running away to try and get somewhere out of the way. His powers weren't a lot of help here since he had to touch things to make it work, and he wasn't exactly going to get skin-on-skin contact with a bunch of hermetically sealed jerks with guns very easily.

I yanked him down behind the cover of a large concrete planter containing a full-grown tree and immediately started bitching, "Why the fuck did you corral yourselves into a kill box?"

I might have had the urge to slap him if I knew I wouldn't lose my hand in the process.

Kevin looked up at me, but tucked his head the second more shots started coming out way, "It just started happening! We tried to fight 'em on the street, but we couldn't move, and there were too many people to keep out of the way! Brian and Cess tried, but the rest of us couldn't keep all of their attention!"

Well, we could try to muster a counterattack. Laura and I were supposed to be the cavalry, so it was time we finished riding in to get everybody out, "Laura, we gotta-," I started to say before realizing that she wasn't there with us, "Laura? Where did she go? She was just with us."

Kevin shrugged and popped his head up to peek around while I covered him with light blasts. Why did she just up and go lone wolf again? We had been over this before. That wasn't the way to do this.

I fired some shots that bought us a few moments and dragged Kevin up to go find the others. He ducked and flinched with every shot that sounded out, even though none were coming at us. I didn't have time for that.

We found Julian dealing with a good number of guys in bodysuits, using his telekinesis to sweep them aside while Santo was battering them with his bare hands in close. Julian saw me and set the telekinesis aside, "This is fucking mess! I didn't know you were into all this!"

I was mad, so I took out that anger on the nearest jabroni in armor trying to get the drop on us. I shot him dead-center and blew the chest of his suit up, "I told you people were trying to kill me! What did you think that meant when I went and asked for help?"

Julian put up a force field to stop himself from getting shot, "I didn't know you meant the U-Men!" He barked back, "How do you keep doing this to yourself?"

U-Men. So that's what they were called. It sounded familiar, "What are they all about?"

Julian angrily grabbed two U-Men with his telekinesis and threw them away over the treetops, "Ripping off mutant parts and putting them on themselves for the powers!"

I stopped looking for targets to shoot in order to give him a curious look, "Ew. What kind of Frankenstein's Monster shit is that?"

This time Julian stopped to look at me like I was stupid, "You fought them already and didn't know?"

"No! I never fought these guys! They weren't the ones after us before!"

"Fantastic! So we have an all new pack of douchebags here to kill you! Any plans, Marcher?"

Finally, we could get past the bickering and get down to business. My eyes went straight up at the stupidly imposing vessel in the sky, "First, take out the air superiority."

Julian agreed with me, but winced when I brought it up, "I tried. I can't bring that thing down. It's too big."

"Let me try," I put my hands together and slowly pulled them apart, feeling the resistance as a tiny little ball of light started to form. Julian saw what I was doing and quickly moved away, remembering the Danger Room. I stopped making the Lux Bomb immediately, "No-no-no, get back here, asshole! I need you to cover me!"

He was afraid. As he should have been. The Lux Bomb was the most dangerous and powerful thing I had in my arsenal. But it wasn't like I was aiming it at him. Julian didn't care though, "No chance! I'm not letting you shoot that thing around me again!"

"Don't be a pussy!" I needed some kind of cover. My hands were occupied while I was making a Lux Bomb, so I couldn't fight until it was done, "Put up a forcefield around us and give me a hand!"

Julian was not running away. He was flying away, "I've got U-Men to fight! Rockslide, cover Solaris! He's gonna shoot down the ship!"

Santo seemed to like the idea. At least someone did, "Awesome! How you gonna do that, Marcher?"

"A giant light bomb," I told him. But I couldn't find another opening to start up on the Lux Bomb. Damn Julian Keller, "Your leader's a bitch sometimes!"

"Yeah, sometimes. Whoa!" Santo moved in the way of gunfire intended for me and intercepted the bullets. He was a solid dude, both literally and figuratively, "You want to get to him, you gotta go through me!"

The fear of being run down by a living golem was something that I could relate to. Punk-ass U-Men though? They probably never imagined it happening to them until right then. But even with Santo running around like the most imposing bodyguard anyone could dream up, I still couldn't get a clean opening to charge my attack.

Fed up and annoyed, I put my glorious plan to shoot down the aircraft on the backburner. It wouldn't work until I could find a place quiet enough to prepare a proper Lux Bomb. On my way to relocate, I caught sight of Sooraya and Cessily.

As I watched them, a question arose. If you were a regular joe, even if you had fancy-ass weapons, what would make you think you could fight a living sandstorm? Because some of the U-Men were armored up, Sooraya didn't hold back.

A strong enough sandstorm can strip the skin off of a human being. Did you know that? I didn't. It had never come up until that moment. When Sooraya realized that she was doing that much damage to the U-Men who didn't have armor, she damn near stopped her attack outright, partially turning back from her dust form.

Anyone looking to take advantage of the opening presented by her remorse was quickly put down by Cessily, who had morphed her arms into mallets to clobber them with. Okay, so they sure didn't need my help. Good to know.

"You guys alright?" I shouted out, just to make sure. Clearly, they could handle themselves, if I'd had any doubts before.

Cessily nodded, keeping her eyes peeled for more enemies, "Yeah. Glad to see you made it. Welcome to the party."

I scoffed and tried to look offended, "My parties are way better than this. I don't see a drop of alcohol anywhere," I turned and pointed at the thing in the sky, "Maybe that thing has some? I'm gonna go see."

"You're going for the airship?" Cessily asked before grinning at the thought of turning the tables, "Want some help?"

"Of course! It's why I came to L.A. in the first place."

And so, we took off to try and get me a better spot to take a shot from. But as we moved, something was weird.

"Wait. It's getting lower," Cessily pointed out, "Why is it getting lower?"

"No idea. I'm thinking it might be important though," Cessily had my back, so we ran off to the part of the park that the aircraft had lowered itself down over. The U-Men seemed to be falling back as we approached, "Are they pulling out of here?"

"Good riddance!" Cessily said. Bullets just passed through her body as she contorted herself and stretched close enough to lash out at enemy combatants and attack them with long finger claws.

Seriously, the Hellions were dangerous as fuck. I mean, they were really good. In a head-to-head battle royal situation, I didn't think the Paladins could beat them straight-up. Actually, with the numbers advantage they would have, I'd say more than likely not.

When we got close enough, we could see that they were indeed retreating. It made sense. Even with the ambush, they were getting their asses handed to them. But that wasn't the point. From where we were when we got close enough, they'd gotten something that they could objectively leave with and call it a victory.

Kimura had Laura, beaten to an absolute pulp, tucked underneath one arm like a sack. She was covered in blood. Her own from the looks of the wounds that I could see healing on her, including a _fucking bullet hole in her head_.

"Laura! Goddamn it!" I yelled in vain. Cessily gasped with her hands to her mouth. Just screaming Laura's name wasn't going to do anything. She wasn't going to magically wake up and fight her way back to me, "Give her back, you sadistic skank!"

Kimura seemed overjoyed to see me, if only because she got to lord Laura's half-dead body over me, "Well if it ain't lover boy! Don't worry, she's not dead. Not yet, at least!" She punctuated, disrespectfully slapping Laura's head roughly, "I might let you have the only part of her that she's any good for to you once we're done."

Evil bitch. I wanted her head on a stick. But here, we were reminded that this particular aircraft was a gunship. It turned around and pointed its guns right at us before opening fire. Cessily tried to protect me, but she couldn't stop an accurate 30mm cannon, so I turned tail and ran. It wasn't like I could help anyone riddled with holes.

While I ducked for cover, the gunship took off, leaving us and any U-Men unfortunate enough to miss the departure on the ground. They stood out in the open, waving at the gunship to come back, as if it would land and open its doors all over again to let them on.

I was livid. I was so angry I ran out and blindsided those morons. With the noise of the takeoff, none of them realized they were being attacked until they were already down. The last one, I didn't even shoot. I sprinted up and punched him in the side of the head as hard as I could. He wasn't heavily armored and dropped like a rock.

I don't remember ever hitting any living thing that couldn't defend itself as hard as I beat on that guy. This was his fault. This was the U-Men's fault. This was the Facility's fault.

And it was my fault. I fucked up again, and someone else I knew was going to suffer because of it. I heard muffled words from different people in my ear, but I just kept punching.

Eventually, I was pulled off of my victim by Santo. I was stronger physically than the rest of the Hellions, all except for him. I could struggle as much as I wanted, I wasn't getting out of his grip, especially with my arms bound, "Get off me, Rockslide!"

I'd gotten through the U-Man's stupid boy in the bubble helmet and had been doing a very good job of turning his face to hamburger with my fists. I wasn't finished.

"Don't let him go, Rockslide!" Julian ordered, "Solaris, this shit isn't helping anybody! Calm down!"

I kicked and spat, but Santo didn't budge. I couldn't even hit him from how he had me, "Fuck you! You didn't lose anybody!" I bellowed at Julian, "And I don't know how to find these guys, so Laura's screwed! I don't know what to do now, so I'm gonna beat the fuck out of these cowards until I feel better! And that might take a while!"

"Yeah, you just do that while they get farther away," Julian said, "Do you want to throw a hissy fit, or do you want to help Laura out?"

I wasn't going anywhere, so I stopped fighting. Instead, I just glared at Julian. I had to be careful or I would have given him the laser pointer treatment and blinded him, "Do you even care? She's just a clone to you anyway, isn't she?"

Julian let out frustrated grunt and grabbed one of the goons that tried crawling away with his telekinesis. He threw him across the ground like a ragdoll, "This happened on my watch too. The U-Men, and that bitch with them... they came right in here, wrecked shit, reached into _my_ refrigerator and took off! I'm pissed too. So let's go do something about it that actually means something."

That sounded good. Really good. But a pep talk was one thing. Facts were facts, "We can't catch them, genius. We can't find them! How are we gonna do something that people whose actual job it is to find them couldn't do it?"

Once again, I found myself out of my depth. Even when I tried to enlist help, they were just as lost as I was. But they were fresher than I was, so they weren't done quite yet.

"We're gonna try. Or are you just a quitter?" Julian said, trying to bait me. I felt my anger rise again, so it worked, "I could say a lot of things about you, Marcher, but I never thought 'quitter' was one of them."

What did he know? He'd spent most of the semester screwing around, playing big man on campus. Sure, there'd been a few things I'd heard of the Hellions getting mixed up in, but it was more delinquent crap than matters of life or death.

Me on the other hand? I was starting to feel fatigued with it all. It was so much, and it just kept piling up. I was so sick of taking lumps. It seemed like every creep on the planet and beyond lined up to take a chunk out of us. It wasn't just me. It was Laura, it was the entire student body, it was Saberwolf.

It was Miss Pryde.

I was frustrated. I had been for some time. And I tried to keep a level head, tried to be the brave leader guy, because that was what my job was, right? But I was tired of my people taking this kind of heat. I needed someone, something to take all of this shit out on.

At that moment, my phone went off. I looked back at Santo, who finally set me down so I could check it, not that I wanted to have any conversations with anyone at the moment. That was, until I saw who was calling. I couldn't hit the green accept button quickly enough, "Wolf? Oh man, are you alright?"

In my fear and unbridled rage that Laura had been taken, I had forgotten that Saberwolf had been with the Hellions when this whole thing started. I hadn't seen him the entire time we'd been fighting. Now I had another reason to feel bad. But Wolf had just what I needed.

" _I cannot speak for long. I have infiltrated the enemy aircraft. How do you wish for me to proceed?"_

My phone was still on speaker from the last time I'd used it the night before at the border, so everyone around me heard him. Santo pointed off in the direction Kimura took Laura in, "Your robot thingy is on the gunship? How?"

" _I possess stealth camouflage."_

All eyes turned to me. I had no response for any of the Hellions, "...He usually doesn't fight for me. I really didn't know he could do that," I said meekly. Seriously, it had never come up.

Now all of a sudden we had a real chance to make a difference. Everyone could see it and everyone had an opinion.

Brian muscled his way close to the phone to get his two cents in, "Dude, can he take it down from the inside?"

Cessily pulled him back admonishing him at how reckless that idea was, "And bring it down where? On top of a city somewhere? Besides, what about Laura?"

True, Laura could take a lot. But I wasn't sure she could take a gunship crash and survive.

Kevin chimed in, a safe distance from possibly touching anyone else, "He's tough, right? Can he get her out by himself somehow?"

I didn't like that idea. They would be hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air by now. Wolf was way over the weight limit to safely use a parachute, and Laura had taken a slug to the temple. She wouldn't be well for quite a while, "He's on his own up there, and he's not a hundred percent. I don't want him tangling with those guys all alone."

" _It is just as well. I cannot fit through the halls to begin with."_

Good old Wolf. He didn't mean to, but he got a chuckle out of me. I was starting to calm down. Starting to think. We had an option to take now, "A lot of this won't matter if we don't crush them where they're coming from. They'll just come at Laura later," It was a long summer. There would be plenty of opportunities to get at her again. We had to make sure they weren't coming back anytime soon, if ever, "Wolf, stay out of sight for as long as possible. We'll track you, and then we'll have an inside man too."

" _I believe can stay hidden until it lands,"_ He said, agreeing with my directions, _"On the off-chance I am discovered though, I will be forced to, 'go loud' as they say."_

"Of course," It went without saying. There wasn't really anything else he could do, "If it goes that far, you won't really have a choice but to bring the whole thing down if you can."

" _Can? No, I will find a way. You can be certain of that"_

Yes I could, "Be safe, buddy. We'll see you soon," With that, I hung the phone up and ran a hand through my hair. Now we just had to move fast enough to make Wolf's little infiltration count, "Okay, things have changed. We need to move fast and follow Wolf now. Any ideas?"

No more hissy fits. There wasn't any time for that. My teammate's life hung in the balance, and my A.I. friend was risking his to keep tabs on her.

Julian didn't look pleased at what he was about to say, "...I'm gonna get in so much trouble for this, but yes. Time to bust out the black card. You'd better be grateful for this, Marcher."

Oh, I definitely was. From what he'd told me, he was going to get chewed out by his parents. But we'd already crossed that bridge and burnt it to a crisp. All I could do was my part to try and make it right, "First day back at school, I'll tell everyone how the Hellions saved my sorry ass. X-Men included."

Brian noticed that I'd pulled up an app that had a dot all over the map of the region, "Whoa. You have a GPS tracker on Saberwolf?"

I looked up and shrugged, "Not just him. I have a GPS tracker on all my teammates' phones, except Laura's," Everyone seemed to think this was strange, making me feel self-conscious yet again that day, "...We've had to deal with being captured by bad guys before."

I did. I had to deal with being captured before. This was a thing instituted in the Paladins because of me. Because sometimes, I suck. Just like that day, I sucked. My calls were shitty. My leadership was shitty. And Laura got caught because I either didn't put my foot down hard enough, or because she didn't believe in me enough to rely on me anymore than she did.

Maybe she was right? Maybe she was better off trying to hold court on her own, before I muscled my way in, trying to be a good friend? None of that mattered at the moment. She needed help, and there weren't a lot of people around willing or in position to give it.

Just seven high school kids and a surly-ass A.I. against the Facility and whatever other groups they had watching their backs for their own interests.

It was a good thing the odds were so bad. I don't think I would have known how to act if I was actually the favorite in something.

* * *

 **...Yeah, I've got nothing witty or informative to share with you this time around. Chapter's complete, people.**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope I'll catch you around for the next one.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	22. Knights of Xavier's

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. Damn it, Fox! They put the goddamn Gambit movie on hold, children! Why can't I have nice things?

Eh... I don't have a lot of faith in them to pull it off well if they ever get around to it anyway, Deadpool aside.

 **Chapter 22: Knights of Xavier's**

* * *

Why was I the only one I knew who was able to fly anything that wasn't powered by someone's… powers?

Julian had ponied up the cash to rent a helicopter. An honest-to-goodness helicopter. He didn't rent a pilot, and honestly, I didn't want one to come with us, but I didn't want to fly the damn thing either. Most people who don't know anything about flying imagine that it's exciting, because if you mess up, you could die. But getting beyond that though, flying is really boring. Not only that, but flying a helicopter is loud. Like, obnoxiously loud.

We were pushing the weight limits for the thing with Santo riding along, which put me at a loss for how we were going to get everyone back once we busted Laura out. But those were problems for Future Bellamy to deal with. At the moment, I was just concerned with getting to Saberwolf before he was discovered and getting to Laura before something awful happened.

Well, something worse. She had already been shot in the head, for fuck's sake.

Just thinking about that made my blood boil. She was still alive, at least that was what Kimura had said. I couldn't imagine it. I hadn't seen just how much punishment she and Mister Logan could take by that point, so I had to take what Kimura said at face value; the evil, sadistic bitch.

The more I thought about what I knew of Laura, and what had happened, how she had been treated, even right in front of me, my mind started to go to some dark places. I could be a surly guy sometimes, but I was never that malicious. I couldn't imagine the thought processes of someone who was. All I knew was that they hurt my friend.

"-listening to me, Marcher?"

When I heard Santo, I cut my eyes toward the back of the helicopter where the others sat. From how everyone seemed to react, I must have had quite a look on my face. I turned forward and tried to fi my expression. It wasn't their fault. If anything, they were doing me a solid by helping me out as much as they had.

I turned to the side where Sooraya rode as my first passenger and felt really bad. What she must have been thinking, staring at my sour puss giving a death stare to the world in front of me for the last two hours.

"Sorry, guys. I'm just pissed. Really pissed," I explained as a way of apologizing, "I asked Laura not to go off on her own to try and take care of business. I asked her twice. I'm just... I don't know what's in her head. And I feel bad because I don't know how to really help her out."

"I believe the fact that you want to, and that it bothers you so much matters," Sooraya said. She had a really charming accent, "I say you should keep trying. You are doing the right thing."

I sighed as I kept my hands on the stick that steered the helicopter, "I don't think she wants me to try. I guess she doesn't trust me, or doesn't respect me, which is fair. After the shit she's been through, having my soft ass try to tell her what to do... I probably wouldn't listen to me either."

Cessily stretched forward, her head over my shoulder with a cattish smile on her face, "Oh, I don't know about that, Bel. If I were you, I wouldn't jump to that conclusion so fast. She's just... well, I probably shouldn't say."

No. I hated that. Don't bait me with information and then not tell me what it is. And like a sucker, I bit on it, "What? What is it?"

Cessily sat back in her seat properly, leaving me hanging, "Nope. It's not my place to say anything, and I might be wrong, so I'm just gonna shut up!"

Julian blew a raspberry from where he sat next to Cessily, "Pfft. I say she's just a space case. You'd have to have Blindfold dig into her head to help what's in there make sense. You can't help some people, Marcher," He concluded, crossing his arms resolutely. That was, until he got jabbed with a metal finger in the ribs, "Ow! What the hell, Cess?"

Once again, when Julian's douche levels started rising, Cessily was able to keep him in check, "Would you stop being a jerk? Laura doesn't deserve any of that. She doesn't even talk to you."

Julian waved his arms around as though she had made his argument for him, "Exactly! She doesn't talk to anyone! Not a word, ever! She's creepy! And since when are you friends with her?"

Cessily grimaced at the point her team's leader had made, "We're not really friends... but I got to spend some time with her when she hung around a bunch at the party, and at your house. She's nice. Quiet, but she's really nice. Plus, she's on Bellamy's team. And Bel is a solid guy."

I turned my head around for a moment to let them all know just how much hearing that meant to me, "That's, like, the second nicest thing anybody's ever said about me since I started going to Xavier's."

From where he sat on the other side of Cessily, Kevin took a moment from brooding out the window to chime in, "Are you serious? That's really sad."

It hit me deep how right he was, "Yeah... it is, isn't it?"

Before I could get too introspective, Julian too the center of attention once more, "Hold up a minute. Since when is liking Marcher a universal Hellions thing? When did we _all_ stop hating him? Don't you remember? He shot me in the face before! Where's the loyalty? Be offended for me!"

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the front, and piloting the airborne machine we were all strapped inside of, "Are we still not past that yet? You had it coming, you dick! I apologized!"

"You didn't apologize to me!"

"...Well that's because you started it. I apologized to Santo."

"You're telling me you didn't egg him on?" Cessily asked with a raised silver eyebrow, "And Bellamy tried to bury the hatchet since then, so what's the big deal?"

That was odd to me, because back then, the mood toward me seemed a step under hostility, "Then why did you all seem so mad when I tried to say I was sorry?"

"I was never angry with you at all," Sooraya said. Which made sense, seeing as how she was the only one I got the feeling didn't want to beat me up at first, "I was aware of the circumstances. I was more disappointed, until you apologized anyway."

Cessily had a good enough excuse ready for me, "It was still pretty fresh, and even if we probably figured that Julian had started it in the first place, well," She trailed off in what I gathered, sight unseen, was a shrug, "He might be a jerk, but he's our jerk."

Santo, bless his heart, was a lot more direct about it, "Hey, I'm cool. Marcher's done nothing but make up for it since then. He bought me a pizza, then he threw that bitchin' party, and now this! He's actually got us doing real hero stuff! Not some simulated crap."

"-Which we can't even do anymore since the Danger Room ran off," Julian added, "Also a Marcher thing."

This was something Santo had just remembered, "Ohhhh, right. That's a point against him. But then he saved all our asses, so that's another point for him."

Julian scoffed, "He didn't save all of our asses by himself. I was there too," Two of his options for support exhausted, he attempted to extend his reach, "Kevin, Brian, back me up. All aboard the fuck Marcher train."

My face twisted up into some horrible, lemon-tasting expression, "I don't want any part of that train, thank you very much."

Julian's jumbled word attempt at trying to reword his statement was cut off by Brian, "I don't either. I like chicks, dude. And even if I didn't, I could do way better than Marcher."

Julian looked around, turning red as he attempted to take back what he said, "That's not what I-!"

"-Can we stop talking about running a train on Marcher?" Santo jumped in to take a cheap shot of his own before gesturing forward to Sooraya sitting with me, "For God's sake, there's a woman of faith on this flight!"

Kevin didn't pile on, unfortunately, leaving his leader's query for what it was meant to be taken as, "I mean, I don't like him. But I don't really know him either. You were kind of rough dragging me around back there," He finished, directed at me.

He received no sympathy from me, "Motherfuckers were shooting at us, and you kept ducking every time you heard a shot. We had to go," I explained. If I had to drag him by his collar to get him to move, so be it, "Us not dying is more important than you being comfortable with how I keep it from happening."

"Wow. Way to be ungrateful, Kevin," Santo snickered at his teammate who held up his hands in response as though he had offended me

"I wasn't! I was just saying!" Kevin defended, as if I cared one way or the other. I wasn't that petty. There were plenty of legit things to be mad about.

...Speaking which, I wasn't nearly as mad as I had been a few minutes ago. I wasn't the only one who noticed either.

Sooraya put a hand on my arm to get my attention. All I could see of her face was her eyes, but they seemed supportive, "Do you feel better now?"

I couldn't help but smile. I was right. Sooraya really was a nice person. How she wound up with the Hellions, I had no idea. There better have been a good story there, "I do actually. That's not good. I wanted to go in there all angry and ready to tear that place to shreds."

"I believe once we arrive you'll find all the motivation you need to get back to that point," She reasoned, making plenty of sense. Damn it, I didn't want anything about my mood to make sense, "But for now, all of that anger would only do you harm."

"-And nobody likes a major grump either, soooo..." Cessily trailed off.

I rolled my eyes and took a look at the signal I was following on my phone. It hadn't moved in about two hours, so they had a decent lead on us, if they expected a gaggle of students to follow them at all.

Either way, we still had plenty of flying time to deal with before it would be an issue.

XxX

Our journey dragged us up to upstate California, to a state forest not too far from the coast. It was just after six in the evening when we landed and headed in farther on foot.

There were so many gigantic trees. I wasn't a wilderness man, and neither was anyone else for that matter. Still, Wolf's beacon told us to go there, so we went in deep. And I mean _deep._ Way past any beaten paths, out of the way of any scenic views, away from places where it looked like humans were even advised to go. Fortunately, we weren't humans. We were mutants.

The more rambunctious members of the Hellions were not pleased. They had come for a fight, not a long, scenic hike through the woods. To be fair, I wasn't much for nature either. There was a long list of things I would rather do than hike or camp.

Julian stomped around in the dirt as we passed tree after tree in the thick part of the forest, "Jeez, this is the absolute pits. Should stopped off and bought some flannel or something," He joked, getting some chuckles from the others.

"What's wrong with flannel?" I asked legitimately. I owned a few different colored flannel shirts. Never had a problem with them, "That's some comfortable stuff."

Brian let out a laugh as he followed in the middle of our traveling pack with Kevin. Given that they were the most vulnerable out of the lot of us, we kept them surrounded, "Other than the fact that it makes you look like a lumberjack? Nothing. I don't see you walking around in it."

I turned and gave him a deadpan stare, "Because it's goddamn summer. Besides, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it."

"And you can pull off flannel?"

"Why not? The man makes the clothes. Why do you think I wear this stupid hat?" I said, flicking the rim of my bucket hat. Before things could get too frivolous, we stopped. All of us could hear that we weren't alone out in the woods, "Shh. Get behind something."

About fifty yards away, we could see armed guards patrolling the area. They didn't have those stupid spaceman suits on, and had conventional rifles and gear. Probably standard staff for the Facility. I didn't rule out the U-Men lurking around though. They had served as Kimura's muscle for some reason.

From where we all chose to hide ourselves, we just let them pass. Fortunately, we were in a forest full of redwood trees, so even Santo could fit his rocky mass behind one and stay out of sight. But holding back wasn't easy, seeing as there were more than a few of us chomping at the bit to get a piece of them – myself included.

I just closed my eyes and counted to ten... then twenty. I had to let it go for now. But soon enough, I wouldn't have to be so nice anymore. People thought I could be a crabby fucker. They had no idea.

A whisper from Santo broke me from my attempts to stay Zen, "Hey, Marcher, how close are we?"

I looked down at my phone to check our position compared to the tracker's beacon, "A mile away from Wolf. But this place might be huge, so the entrance could be anywhere around here."

"How do you know?"

Because I had been held captive in one of those kinds of places before, damn it, "Reasons. But if Wolf is inside, he should be able to open an entrance somewhere," I told them.

It sounded good to everyone else, "We just have to make sure we get to it before it gets choked up with bad guys," Julian said, punching into his palm, "He'll fight to keep it open, right?"

"He'll do what he thinks he should," I answered diplomatically, not leaning one way or the other, "He's a machine, but his brain works just like a human's. Just... you know, better."

Truth be told, I didn't want Wolf to fight at all. Not after he told me back in Mexico that he'd gotten damaged. In a perfect world, he'd open the door, we'd find it quickly, and he'd fall back to somewhere less dangerous than out in front of all of the gunfire. He'd done more than enough.

I brought up my contacts and hesitated for a moment before calling. What if he had been discovered and taken out? What if he was in a situation where he couldn't talk? I tried texting him instead. He could receive and send those. I just hoped he had a chance to answer back.

When my phone vibrated in my hand, I breathed a sigh of relief, "He says there are two main doors. One for stuff like helicopters and one for ground vehicles and people on foot. Which one are we at?"

Cessily looked around as though she would find the answer somewhere in the wilderness around us, "Neither. We don't even know where any doors are."

I nodded, my eyes focused down on tapping out a message on my touchscreen, "I'm telling him that. Sit tight," It took a moment to get a response. Wolf was quick on the reply, "He says he didn't go far from the gunship, and that's by the aircraft door. Just follow the beacon the rest of the way and we should find it. Come on."

We all started to move out, keeping an eye out for anyone with a gun in their hands. For being a straight-up shock-and-awe squad, the Hellions knew how to move and get themselves into position without being loud. I knew they were good, but working with them instead of competing against them gave me a lot more respect for what they could do.

Eventually, we found a concrete slope that looked like a barrier at first, until we got right next to it. Five feet high, it was the length of plus-sized landing pad. Easily big enough to fit the gunship that had come at us back in Los Angeles, and then some.

"This is a legit underground bunker," Julian marveled at the fact he was getting into some legitimate action, "Me and Santo both pulling at this thing couldn't pry it open."

"That's why we have Saberwolf on the inside," I pulled out my phone and sent the message that would make sure there was no turning back, "Everybody get ready. I have no idea what's in there."

No wisecracks or bragging. Even from the mouthier members of the Hellions. Good. Everyone was aware of how serious this was. None of them seemed scared though.

We all stood clear of the doors in complete silence. The only sound between any of us was birds chirping in the forest around us. It was time to see what they could really do. I just hoped I'd made the right choice by bringing them on, and that no one got hurt.

...I hoped that none of _us_ got hurt, meaning the Hellions, Wolf, and Laura. Everyone else involved could make mouth love to a shotgun for all I cared.

The loud sound of machinery beginning to open the doors put an unnatural smile on my face. It was a mixture of nerves and something else.

I wanted to fight, and it wasn't out of a sense of righteousness or heroism. I wanted to harm the people responsible for hurting my friend and threatening my other ones. Because I don't care what anyone says about it being right or wrong, or whatever. There's no emotional substitute for revenge.

I couldn't ask the Hellions to take part in something this dangerous without leading the way, so the moment the doors opened wide enough to fit me, I dropped down inside first.

From a cursory glance as I fell to the ground, the hangar I dove down into was sparsely guarded. A few suckers were caught looking up when I fired blasts from my hands to slow myself down.

Others, like Santo and Cessily, had no need to slow themselves down. They hit the ground even before I did and went straight to work cleaning house. Julian lowered himself down along with Brian and Kevin, and Sooraya... holy shit.

Reinforcements came our way quickly after shots started going off and the first few guys went down. They didn't make it into the hangar before a large plume of dust swept into the corridor leading in. There was lots of automatic gunfire, but you couldn't exactly shoot a cloud of particles blowing all over you.

For someone so nice, Sooraya was perhaps the meanest fighter on the Hellions. The force of a sand blast from her was devastating, she could overwhelm multiple people at once, and unless you had the proper powers or countermeasures to deal with her, you couldn't really fight her.

"Yeah sweep the hall, Dust!" Julian cheered/ordered as he touched down and looked around, "Where's your Wolf, Solaris?" A fine question.

"Saberwolf!" I shouted into the open air of the hangar, "Where you at?"

"Right behind you."

I didn't even jump upon hearing the emotionlessly programmed voice of my very dangerous A.I. friend. When I turned around, I could see a faint distortion in the air in the shape of Wolf before he dropped his stealth camouflage, revealing himself.

I grabbed his head and checked him over for any new injuries, but didn't find any. Good, "Are you alright?"

"I am unharmed. I was fortunate to go undiscovered as the crew disembarked from the gunship. They were lacking in their attention to certain details," Wolf explained, before interrupting my amateur checkup by backing away from me, "What are you doing?"

Fine. See if I ever show any concern over your well-being again, "Making sure your ass didn't get shot since the last time your ass got shot. What about Laura?"

I didn't know how much information he could have possibly gathered while staying out of sight, but lo and behold, he didn't let me down, "The U-Men were hired as manpower to get her back for the people who are in charge of this facility. Their payment comes in the form of technology and transplants."

Julian overheard and shot a glare at nothing in particular, "Of course. Bunch of freaks. Why am I not surprised?" He muttered before talking to Wolf, "You didn't happen to catch what they're getting transplanted, did you?"

It didn't matter, as all of it would be bad from whoever it was taken from, but I had a morbid curiosity as well, "The enemy has retrieved Laura. They plan to clone her and use some of the successful versions to harvest major organs that the U-Men will use."

Kevin looked like he was going to be sick, "That's so messed up."

It was, and I would be damned if it happened on my watch. But again, they had a head start on us. There was a chance we'd gotten there too late to do anything to help. The only thing we could do however was to move forward.

"Let's do this already," Enough fumble-fucking around. I was ready to get down to business for real, "Wolf, hang back. You've done enough," Stepping into this den of assholes all by himself with no way out and no backup? Yeah, he didn't have to do anything else as far as I was concerned.

I expected him to mouth off again, but to my surprise he actually did as I asked and let everyone else go first. Julian gestured forward, "Rockslide, Mercury. You two are the vanguard. Give 'em hell."

Santo's rocky fists smacked together as he charged ahead to lead the way. Cessily moved behind him as we all advanced through the bunker.

It was a complete crap shoot. Yes, we were kids, but we were trained well. The rank-and-file of the Facility weren't equipped to deal with us. They could try and pump all of the lead into us they wanted. Three of us couldn't be hurt that way, and one guy could shield the rest of us who were vulnerable with his mind.

As we barreled ahead, Brian lingered right behind the safe frame of Santo. Every time we came across a good group of enemies, he would touch Santo, tagging him with a psionic marker that attracted whoever he chose to run toward him. Brian literally had the most durable, dangerous one of us getting his pick of who he got to squash up close.

Stragglers were picked off by the rest of us. The strategy was outstanding. It was simple, but it was like a freight train. Just because you knew what was coming, if you were standing on the tracks, could you stop it?

The answer was no.

From the back, Wolf guided our progress, telling us which way to turn to get us closer to our target of reaching Laura. His still being able to sense her was a good sign. If she was dead, she wouldn't have showed up to him at all.

Santo was a bulldozer, and with Wolf's directions, he plowed straight through a pair of big metal doors. The first thing we saw was a group of U-Men standing by a table with a specimen opened up and held that way with clamps.

It was Laura. For the love of God, I could still see her body moving, showing she was breathing.

When they saw us, they went for their weapons. One was stupid enough to use the scalpel they were dicing my friend up with to then try and hold her hostage.

"Stay ba-."

A light blade flew across the room and cut that particular U-Man to the bone, splattering the walls and floor with blood. He screamed in agony on the floor, but it was lost with the other sounds of battle as the Hellions neutralized everyone else in short order.

Why the hell would his threatening to hurt her have stopped me? They already had. They still would have done worse even if I had stopped. Besides, if Laura could take a bullet to the head and survive, a fucking scalpel wound to the neck wouldn't have done anything, not that it so much as touched her again.

I couldn't run over to her fast enough, even with bullets and U-Men flying all over the place. For those of you that have dissected frogs in biology, looking at an opened up person is not the same thing. Not only because it's gross, but because it looks so much like what you imagine you look like, it puts you in touch with your own mortality.

I would never forget that sight for as long as I lived. The first time you see something like that, it sticks with you, no matter how many times you see it afterwards. And when the first time you see it involves someone you care about? Forget it. You need a telepath to whitewash that kind of stuff out of your head.

Laura was bolted to the table, so I worked on lasering those open. I liked to pretend that the cracking noises I heard were her bonds breaking, and not her rib cage snapping itself into place to cover her organs back up. Every time I glanced over at her, I winced and looked away. The poor thing made the most desperate whining, gurgling noises I had ever heard as her healing factor tried to put her back together.

Next to the table, there was a list with detailed specs of what they were going to remove from her, how they were going to do it, and how they were going to put them into themselves.

There was an IV feeding a big bag of something directly into her, probably to keep her from fighting back in any way, even while she was damn near bolted down, "They pumped her full of this shit and she's still barely sedated," I muttered as I went to pick her up, "Come on, Laura. We're getting you out of here."

Julian watched the tail end of Laura putting herself back together. He cringed at the sight of her top layer of flesh weaving itself in place, "Ugh. Man, where are the New Mutants when you need 'em? That gold loser Elixer would be really useful right now."

"She'll be okay," I said as she finished healing. Physically she would be fine, at least. I hoped she was doped up enough to not be aware of what had happened, "We need a way out of here," I said, taking off my t-shirt to try and do something to cover Laura's modesty.

"Back to the chopper?" Julian suggested, getting a shake of the head from me, "No?"

Other than the fact that it would be a hell of a ways on foot to get back to that thing, it wouldn't work out anyway, "Fuck the chopper. That thing can't carry all of us."

We needed an escape plan, and I was open for suggestions. Brian overheard us and offered one, "Can you fly the gunship?"

That was a good question. I had no idea what the inside of that thing looked like, "I... don't know. You sure you want to bank our escape on me winging it with a complex aircraft?"

"Why not?" Brian asked rhetorically, "We should be due for some good luck by now, right?"

It wasn't like I had a better plan. Our preparations ended with getting the hangar doors open. From there we were flying by the seat of our pants. We had to go with what we could, "Fine. To the hangar. Make sure it's clear."

"Everybody, we're moving out!" Julian yelled out to the Hellions, "Clean house back to the hangar! Anything not us, hit it fast, hit it hard!"

Wolf walked over and offered himself up to carry Laura on his back as we fell back. Perhaps the most dangerous girl I knew just looked so helpless, draped over Wolf's body. It seemed like her eyelids fluttered for a moment, maybe her trying to wake up. All she needed was some time, and she wouldn't necessarily be fighting fit, but good enough.

The hope was though, that she wouldn't be needed. If we could get away before her body worked off all of the drugs that had been pumped into her, all the better. It meant everything had gone right.

"You're so much goddamn trouble, Laura," I muttered, frowning down at her, "It's good to see you're still alive though."

I didn't know if she could hear me or not, but it didn't hurt to say out loud. If not for her sake, for my own. She was my teammate, and I wouldn't tolerate losing a single one of them.

The trek back to the hangar was peaceful. Too peaceful. As in, we didn't have to deal with any resistance on our way out. That was our first clue that something was wrong. Our second clue came in the form of the gunship being active by the time we got there.

Instead of fighting us on foot, they went for abandoning the base. For the second part of a wicked one-two punch, it was also the biggest, baddest thing they had to fight us with.

"No-no-no-no!" Brian shouted, recognizing just how bad things were. He grabbed Sooraya and pulled her out of the way. The rest of us did something similar.

Through the windows of the bridge, there was a small crew manning the craft, with Kimura in the cockpit. I fired a blast at the window, but I might as well have thrown a rock. They retaliated by opening up the cannon and peppering us with bullets. Santo and Julian covered us as we ran for cover and ducked inside of doorways in the hall.

We were pinned down and were being sent back. If things kept up, they were going to escape, if they didn't use the weapons onboard to kill us first. There were missiles on that thing, I was sure of it.

"What are we going to do now?" Cessily shouted over the sound of jets and gunfire. It was deafening, even from where we were, "We can't go forward or back!"

I was already on it, "What we're gonna do is, you're gonna stay down and let me finish this thing this time," I said, getting everyone to notice the Lux Bomb I was charging between my hands.

Julian had another PTSD moment and nearly backed out into the storm of lead to keep away from the high explosive in my possession, "You're gonna blow up our way out?"

No, that avenue to escape was closed. We had to find something else, and while we were doing that, we might as well take away what they had as well, "As long as she's on that thing, it's not our way out. It's an obstacle. And what do we do with obstacles, children?"

Santo answered me from across the hall, "Fuck 'em up!"

"I was going more for overcome 'em, but that works too!" I stepped from halfway around the corner and took quick aim, "Make a wish, you sour cunt!"

The light ball of doom rocketed forward and impacted off of the front of the gunship with a flash. Then a terrible explosion rocked the hangar and the hallway we were stuck in. The shockwave hit the half of my body that was in the open and spun me around like a flying top into the wall behind me.

I was dizzy and breathless from how hard I was hit, by my own doing of course, but still. Santo grabbed me and yanked me back onto my feet. I wasn't ready to stand yet and stumbled about until I found my footing.

The air was hot, but it didn't bother Santo any, "Ho-ly shit, Solaris! Is that what that does?" The big, rocky boy asked, looking at the flaming wreck that used to be a gunship burning in the hangar, "Why don't you do that all the time?"

"Because it takes time to charge. Because it uses an assload of energy. Because it's stupid-dangerous," I listed as the room stopped spinning around me, "There are parameters for me using it."

"Like what?"

"Like 'fuck everything in that general direction'."

Julian let out a snort of laughter, but we were still in a pickle, "Well we need a new way out now. Ideas?"

Sooraya was the one who actually chimed in with an idea. One none of us had thought of until that point, "We are not that far from the coast. Do you think there's a dock that we can use?"

A dock with boats and stuff. Not a bad idea. That could probably carry all of us, depending on what they had. And boats aren't that hard to drive. If that sort of thing was in-house, we could definitely make use of it.

We had little idea where we were going, but we couldn't just stay in one piece. We had to keep moving. Luckily, we didn't run into much opposition. We had more or less fought our way through the cream of the crop that they had on foot on our way in, and anyone else left had probably been inside of the gunship... which was bad for them.

It was like running through a maze. We had to split up just to make sure we went down a corridor that didn't lead us to a dead end. Just tedious.

However long it took, it was long enough to Laura to fully stir. Pushing herself up on Wolf's back, he stopped and let her try to stand on wobbly legs. Much like I had, she stumbled and hit the wall just to stay up.

"Hey," I barked in her direction slapping Wolf on his back where she had been before, "Get your ass back on Saberwolf. You aren't walking anywhere right now."

"I am... not dead," Laura observed, touching at her body where she had been sliced open, guts available for the world to see not too long ago, "You rescued me."

Barely. I didn't exactly want to be reminded of seeing her opened up on a slab like a science experiment, "Yeah, I have no clue why they didn't kill you before trying to harvest your organs, but we're not complaining."

She had an answer to the question I didn't want or need answered, and not a very surprising one, "Probably because Kimura would have wanted me to survive to experience it..." She took a look around and sniffed at the air, "We are still here?"

I can imagine how I would have felt blacking out in hell and waking up in the exact same place. At least she was free to move now, "Yeah, don't worry about that. Just enjoy the ride on Wolf, and watch the sharp edges. You've dealt with enough shit today."

She didn't like it, but she plopped herself back on Wolf and let him carry her as we kept searching in vain. We had no idea where we were going. Eventually we came to a stop at a junction with multiple paths.

"Oh no," Cessily exclaimed. It didn't feel like we were making any progress, "Guys, we're so lost. We're never gonna find any docks. There might not be any."

Kevin started down one corridor before stopping and looking down another, "Well they don't really have a whole lot of ways to get stuff in here without every hiker in California seeing it," He said, "What now?"

From Wolf's back, Laura pointed down a particular hallway, "That way," She said with full confidence, getting skeptical looks from the others, "...I can smell the water."

Julian slapped his forehead as though it were obvious... and to be fair, it was, "Fuck. Right. Wolverine's clone. Alright, Claws. If you know where we're supposed to be going, call it out. Now's not the time to be quiet."

And speaking of quiet, until then the only sound around us had been the ones that we had made – voices, footfalls, etc. But as we convalesced, I started to hear something else. Laura already had, if her looking off down one particular corridor meant anything.

I held up a hand, getting everyone's attention, "Do you all hear that?" I asked, pointing the way Laura was looking.

Everyone had to strain to hear it, until it started getting louder. By then, there was no mistake, "Is that an engine?" Santo asked.

I didn't want to find out, "Run! Laura, start calling shit out!" I yelled as we all took off down the path she had originally told us to use.

And she did. Every time there was a direction we needed to take, she gave us just the way we needed to go, in detail, even giving us the distance until the next turn.

"In 20 meters, turn left!"

" _Meters_?" Santo didn't like Laura's use of the metric system, "We ain't Canadian! Speak English!"

"65 feet!"

"Thank you!"

This was how it went, until the thing chasing us got close enough for us to see it. An armored vehicle rolling through the halls, just about to nip at our heels. Wolf picked up his pace, no longer content with lingering at the back. I couldn't blame him. But then, that left me at the back. I could feel the truck rolling up on me closer and turned on the afterburners, so to speak.

Other than Wolf and Julian when he flew, I was the fastest person there. I didn't have to be though. I just had to be faster than the slowest person... which was the guy made out of solid rock.

"Whoa!" The truck bumped into Santo from behind again and again, pushing him forward, "Oh shit!" He finally tripped and fell, getting run over like a mutated speed bump.

"Santo!" I yelled out, watching a friend of mine get turned to roadkill, "...Wait. He can survive that, right?"

"I'm pretty sure that didn't even hurt him," Julian said, flying ahead of all of us. Eventually turning to fly backwards so he could focus on the truck, "Enough of this crap. I'm pulling a Marcher."

"I don't even want to know what that is," I told him, "Just kill it already!"

Julian's hands glowed green as he went to deal with the assault vehicle after us. But he was thwarted by some god awful ear-splitting sound that felt like it was boring into our skulls. He couldn't focus on the truck, and couldn't even fly.

Laura hugged onto Wolf's back, grinding her teeth in pain. Whatever we were hearing was magnified for her dozens of times over.

Brian had been right earlier. We were due a lucky break, and it came in the form of the hallway opening up into the indoor dock we had been after. Once we burst through the doors, we dove out of the way and let the truck behind us skid past.

Kimura stepped out of the driver's seat, crossbow in hand. Eyeing her first targets, she fired a bolt at Saberwolf, and then one at Cessily. When both were hit, electricity rolled through them. Even Laura felt it and was shocked off of Wolf's back.

She grinned at her own handiwork, "These were meant for the clone, but they'll work just perfectly on you two. Stay down for a little while."

Sooraya transformed into her dust form and did her best to tear Kimura apart. I appreciated her lack of hesitation. Remorse was a luxury we could afford later. Well, they could. I didn't have any and I doubted I would.

Unfortunately; the invulnerable skin came into play again. It just made it harder for Kimura to march through. It was all I needed though. Seeing as how she couldn't see me, I got behind her and wrapped my arms around her throat.

The immediate gagging sound she made at getting snatched from behind by the throat was music to my ears. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, "Fuck. Off. Already," She tried to reach back and grab my balls, so I jumped up and wrapped my legs around her waist to deny her the opportunity and make her carry my weight, "Uh-un. Not that easy."

It was beautiful. Because she tried to rip my nuts off, when I wrapped my legs around her, it trapped her arms at her side, so she couldn't even try to peel me off.

She flailed around and did what she could to fight it, but I held on as tight as I could, and I was super strong. I wasn't choking her as quickly as I wanted to because of her powers, so I got nastier about it. The hand I had wrapped around her the back of her head, pushing her into the choke, I started heating it up to the point where I would set her head on fire. After all, her skin might have been ultra-tough, but her hair wasn't. Last time I checked, hair was flammable.

I didn't get the chance to finish the job then and there though.

"I'm coming, guys!"

Santo barreled into the scene, running straight through Sooraya's dust storm that she had lightened up on so I wouldn't die in it. He couldn't see, and plowed right into Kimura, with me on her back.

The impact knocked me loose and sent me flying over the guardrail that elevated our position over the docks and I fell right into the water, which hurt less than it would have if I'd hit the dock or a boat.

As far as I was aware, that was the first team fuck up of the day. Couldn't have come at a more important time.

I was harder to kill than that. I mean, I could swim just fine. I didn't see Kimura fall in with me, so I surfaced and tried to claw my way out onto a dock. I could still hear fighting up above, so I scrambled to get back up there. When I did, I saw Kimura hoisting Kevin by his neck. His covered neck.

Oh, she was so lucky. If she hadn't been wearing gloves, and if he dressed like a normal person, she would have been dead and wouldn't even have known it. Speaking of which-.

"Wither, just touch her already!" I yelled at him. He was clutching at her arm, trying to get her to let go. Literally all he had to do was take off a glove and touch her bare arm.

Kevin looked over at me and choked out a reply, "I can't! I'll kill her!"

My jaw fell open, "Does it look like I give a shit about that? You are literally about to die!"

Kimura spared me a glance and scoffed before pulling out a handgun. I didn't know who it was intended for, me or Kevin, probably both, but we never got to find out.

The ear-piercing sound from before shut off with a resounding 'smash'. After that, a green glow covered Kimura's hand, disarming her. That same glow then covered her whole body, releasing Kevin and pinning her arms to her sides before it slammed her into the wall again and again. It might have been funny if I didn't know that it hadn't hurt her.

"No, he isn't," Julian said, wincing and holding his head with one hand, punishing Kimura with the other, "Crazy bitch."

Sooraya and Brian helped to try and pull Cessily back together, as she had been thrown all out of whack by Kimura's electrified arrow. Meanwhile, Saberwolf had recovered enough from his shock treatment to shred the armored vehicle open with his claws and destroy the sonic device Kimura had used to neutralize Julian and Laura.

Good boy. If I ever said that to him, he would rip me limb from limb, and I would deserve it.

With things settling down, I walked over to our captive. She smirked dead in my face, staring right into my eyes, so I gave her a little laser pointer action, "Ow, you little fuck!"

I'd tried to permanently blind her and do it fast before anyone realized I did it. I guess I couldn't muster that much force to my eyes that quickly.

"Well-well-well! Caught the head bitch in charge!" Julian gloated as everyone started to recover from the quick fight, "Hey, Sol. Think this is X-Men worthy?"

Kimura wasn't impressed, and proved as much. Feeling vengeful at having me poke her in the eyes with light, with her hands by her side, she pulled a little vial from her side pocket and chucked its contents at me. It splashed on my undershirt and I jumped back, entirely unharmed.

Julian recoiled as though he expected me to melt. It was even more confusing when nothing happened, "What was that supposed to be, acid?"

No. And it took a moment before I realized just what had happened. It was only when I heard panicky breathing and a sound that was constantly growing in familiarity that I figured it out.

 ***SNIKT***

Laura stood, claws bared, teeth gritted, eyes bloodshot, staring me down like an animal set to pounce. And at any second, she would.

Kimura taunted us, "So what are you gonna do now, hero? Your rescue is gonna rip your bleeding heart out of your chest."

Laura charged me, murder in her eyes. With no fanfare, I reached my hand up in her direction and shot her in the face with a concussive blast. She was tough, and really hard to kill, but she got head injuries like everyone else. Hit anyone hard enough in the head, they would go out.

Well, Laura was anyone, and she dropped like a stone. Dropped like a stone and didn't get up. You couldn't try to kill something if you weren't awake to do it.

Julian stared at me in shock. Yes, I had gone kind of hard with that shot. I don't think he had ever actually seen me shoot anyone else in the head seriously before, Concussive or explosive. Even with concussive blasts, it's a lot more violent-looking than people think, "Damn, Solaris! Aren't we here to save her?"

KOing the poor girl was the best thing to do at the moment, especially after the talk she'd given me on the trigger scent. From what I'd heard, it was not to be messed around with. She could not fight it with sheer willpower. Once she got a whiff of it… that was that. It was a wrap.

"I am. Does this scent thing wash off?" I asked our enemy. Kimura didn't answer me, instead glaring death my way. It was good enough for a yes for me, so I dropped myself back into the water again and swam my way to the nearest boat to use, "Let's go."

We were done. I wanted to be anywhere other than that hellhole. But that still left a loose end that Julian felt necessary to harp on.

"Wait, what do we do with her?" I sat down on the edge of the boat and gestured with my hands to hold Kimura underwater and drown her ass, "No! Solaris, we're not doing that! It's cold-blooded murder."

Murder seemed like it was too good for that skeezer. But I didn't have a way to articulate it and really justify it. I just sat there, flailing my arms uselessly, speaking in half-sentences, "Yeah, but-. I mean, she-. After what they did to-," Eventually, I just gave up, "Fuck."

Was I really trying to justify killing somebody to the rest of my classmates? How could I do that and try to play it cool? Was there really something wrong with me?

Killing in a fight where someone was trying to kill you was one thing. If I could have strangled Kimura to death or something else when I had the chance? That would have been justifiable. I could at least reconcile it with myself and others. We had clearly won at this point, so killing her there was nothing short of an execution.

It didn't matter what you did for a living. You could be a soldier on the front. If the wrong people caught wind of that, the shit would get you locked up. I was angry, but to murder? Not that angry.

In my opinion, Kimura totally needed to take a dirt nap. But to volunteer the lot of us as the hangmen? I might have actually needed my head checked.

XxX

The X-Men weren't available, but you know who was? Agent fucking Brand, the mean lady from S.W.O.R.D. Not that she directly did anything for me, but seeing as how she owed me for taking part in saving the world, she gave me the means to get into contact with S.H.I.E.L.D.

I had to use someone else's phone to call them though, seeing as how my phone got dunked in the bay. I stood on Kimura's face with both feet for five whole minutes when I realized that. Bitch.

S.H.I.E.L.D. got their asses in gear and found us, quick. We had been out of the Facility's little hidden cove for an hour, riding down the coast in our boats when all kinds of aircraft and much bigger armed boats came to get us.

Thankfully, they didn't point any weapons at us or threaten us. They just instructed us to pull off to shore so we could pass off our prisoner. We did so with great pleasure. The sooner we could put all of this behind us, the better.

"We've got this from here. We'll clean that place up and get you kids home."

That was the thing they said that stuck in my head. Clean up. Yeah, they would have to, because we ripped that place to shreds.

It was nice that we didn't get the blankets and hot cocoa treatment either. Like hell we were victims. We won. The only one who could have been considered a victim today was Laura, but I don't think she would have known what all of the comfort stuff was for if she got it.

While the Hellions were commiserating amongst themselves about how awesome they were, and Laura was off getting clothes to wear from S.H.I.E.L.D., I still felt unfulfilled. With Saberwolf in tow, I marched over to where Kimura was stuck, bound just outside of a transport, waiting to be taken away to supervillain prison.

He walked along with me, trying to talk me down of all things. He was good at reading body language, but he didn't have to be to see how I was feeling, "I do not think it is wise to confront this person alone. You are not in a controlled state of mind."

He was right, but what did that even mean at this point?

"I hear you, Wolf," Kimura fucked up my vacation. None of this was supposed to happen. Mister Logan had Laura go with me to have a good time, not to get terrorized by her old psychopath of a bully, "I just want to talk."

I wondered how well he could detect lies.

Even after everything that had happened, even after handing her ass to her at least twice since this all started, aside from violent, overwhelming anger in the moment, she just treated everything that had happened as a momentary setback.

It was like she was so certain she wouldn't get any lasting consequences out of this. Even when she was in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, all alone, she was as cool as a cucumber.

We tore their little base to bits and pieces. Left their personnel picking up teeth and body parts off of the floor. And here Kimura was, acting like it was nothing more than a trifle.

It pissed me off, and it took her all of two seconds to recognize it when I came up to her. Why else would I have?

"See something you like?" She taunted, right off the bat. I hadn't even stopped in front of her yet.

I spat at her feet, not on her. Not because I was gentleman, but because she was behind some see-through, hard to break case, like a mint condition action figure, "You're still breathing, so no," I said, "I just wanted to see what a rabid dog looks like. Too bad you won't get put to sleep."

Kimura chuckled softly. Her face was the perfect mask of calm, but there was a wild shine to her eyes, "Yeah, you really should have killed me. Too bad you didn't have the ability or stones to, kid."

I wasn't stupid. I wasn't about to murder this woman surrounded by would-be heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. But God, I wanted to. If I could have done it at that moment and gotten away with it, I would have.

Instead, I channeled light energy to one fingertip and pressed it against the glass. There was a hiss and steam as it burned the surface like a cigarette lighter, even while she grinned maniacally. I couldn't hurt her. But that was fine. She was off the street.

It should have been fine.

I took a deep breath in and out of my nose, "The only reason I didn't kill you is because all of my friends were watching," I whispered so none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents puttering around could hear me, "If you get out, and I ever see you again, you'd better kill me first. Because if you don't, and I get my hands on you, I'll kill you in a way you haven't even thought of."

She didn't take me seriously. And why would she have. Instead of fear or anger, she just laughed, "Your little friends will never get the drop on me again. I've got your number now. How you work. And I know where to find you all."

For a threat, it wasn't much of one. If she was nuts enough to attack the Xavier Institute, she wouldn't be the first person. Just another to add to the list.

"Did I say anything about them? I said me," I said, raising an eyebrow. She had made the mistake of making eye contact again to be defiant, so I gave her another laser flash to fuck with her sight again. She didn't like that one bit and actually struggle to try and get at me afterwards. That made me feel a little better, "Anyway, enjoy your 6-by-8 cell and your freezing metal toilet, loser."

"You and the clone are both dead. Your freak friends too."

I didn't give her the satisfaction of turning back around. I just held up my hand and gave her a 'yap-yap-yap' gesture. We were done.

What was more important than some yappy woman with a sadistic streak a mile long was the person she targeted.

Laura was smarter than I was when it came to avoiding unpleasant things. She did her best to keep as far away from Kimura as possible, but still stuck around the rest of us close enough for my tastes. At least she wasn't going off on her own anymore, for now. And she had clothes again – also a plus.

She sat on a little rocky ledge overlooking the beach scene and all of the agents moving around. I sat next to her and let myself relax for the first time in over two days, "So, how are you holding up?"

Laura just stared out at the water, but she didn't ignore me, "You should have killed her, Bellamy."

She didn't say it as though I had messed up by not doing it and she was upset. It was more like she was just disappointed that it hadn't happened.

"I know," Her head turned my way in surprise. I gave her a little smile and jerked my head toward the Hellions off nearby, "Don't tell them that though. And don't dwell on it when we can't fix it now. We won. We took these guys down."

I wanted to try and cheer Laura up, but it wasn't to be. The girl was too realistic. Hope wasn't a thing she invested in easily, "No. Kimura is not the Facility. She is just an agent," She said, closing her eyes, "In the grand scheme of things, killing her doesn't matter. It won't destroy everything, but-."

"-It sure would help you sleep better," I finished, paraphrasing where I figured she was going with that. Laura hesitated, but did eventually nod, "I get it. Believe me, I do. I mean, I can't relate, not even a little bit, but...I don't know," I sighed and went silent before something insignificant caught my attention, "…Did you just use a contraction?"

Ever since I had met her, she always used the full pronunciation of words. It had been weird at first, but I'd gotten used to it. In fact, it was weirder to hear her deviate from doing so.

"Yes. Cessily told me people would be more comfortable speaking with me if I did," Laura told me, "I told her I would try."

I gave her a nudge, "You should spend more time with Cessily. She likes you," I had picked up on that much from talking to her in the helicopter. More people getting close to Laura wasn't a bad thing at all.

Laura nodded, sparing a glance in the direction of the silver-skinned girl, "She told me that, back at Julian's home. She asked me why we didn't hang out more."

I could imagine the look on Laura's face when that question came up, "What did you say?"

She gave me a grumpy frown, knowing full well I knew what she'd said, "I did not have an answer. But I said that I would like to be friends," She turned her head as though she were sizing me up, "Are you and I friends?"

That came out of the blue. What kind of a question was that? As if I hadn't just gone ripping and running up and down the west coast for her. I was insulted.

I opened my mouth to make some smartass remark, but stopped short when I realized that I had never referred to her as my friend out loud. Always 'my teammate'. And yet, in Mexico, she had called her friend. Granted, she'd said it to Kimura, but I still heard it.

"Sorry... I just didn't think it needed to be said. I guess I probably should have," For a girl who was still learning how to infer things in a social setting, I had to be clear for a while, "Yeah, we're friends."

She hesitantly held up her hand for the 'too sweet', as if to verify what I was telling her. It was adorable. She did it right, but it seemed like she didn't know if she was allowed to initiate one. Of course she was. It wasn't exclusive to me, Eddie, and Ruth.

All the same, I shook my head no and pushed her hand down. She seemed put out until I slid closer and gently pulled her into a hug, "God, I'm so glad you're alive."

Laura didn't fight it, but she didn't seem to know just what to do either. She just let me hold onto her until I'd had enough. Unfortunately, things could never just happen and be nice.

"Damn, Sol!" Santo called out from where he was hanging out with the rest of the Hellions on the beach, "Don't you have a girlfriend already? Don't let Pixie find out you're hanging all over Laura!"

I didn't let go. I just lifted my head to glare and snap at him, "Shut up! I'm trying to have a moment here!"

He said something back, and I'm sure some of the other Hellions got into it as well, but I didn't pay attention to that. Laura actually returned my hug, much to my surprise. She was awkward trying to get her arms around me, lack of practice I presume, but she did it, "I'm glad I'm still alive too," She whispered to me, resting her head on my shoulder, "Thank you, Bellamy."

That by itself was worth the hell I thought I was going to catch when I got home. After all, I'd have been gone for almost two days. Explain things as well as you want, it doesn't matter. Parents just don't understand superhero crap.

* * *

 **And that's the chapter, you guys.**

 **Laura is safe and sound. Well, as safe and sound as she can be. That girl has to deal with some shit in her life. Sheesh. So much for a fun summer vacation.**

 **That's all I have for you this time. Until the next update, I hope you all enjoyed.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	23. Fighting the Still Life

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. Man, Marvel Studios has an assload of money at this point. Everything they make is seemingly a license to print money. It's hard to believe that superhero movies were a struggling medium at one point. Well, no longer, children. I'll tell you that much.

 **Chapter 23: Fighting the Still Life**

* * *

As I had expected, I did get in trouble for all of the problems that had gone down with Laura and the Facility. Not as much as you would think when you looked back on all of the terrible things that had happened, but there was a reason for that. I didn't give the whole story. I omitted the unnecessary parts.

You know... the me likely killing several people. The illegal border-hopping. The car thefts. All of those juicy details. No one needed to know about that.

On the flip side, I kept in the things that would garner sympathy. Mostly relating to Laura's hardships, again leaving out the unnecessary stuff, like her coming just a hair away from having her organs harvested. You left certain things out when talking to people about superhero stuff when they had no idea what that world was like.

It worked. I got off much easier than I thought I would have. I didn't even get grounded, I just had to stay somewhere my parents could keep an eye on me for a while, which just meant more shifts at the theater. Hell, they even let Laura work with me.

God, maybe Laura was right? Maybe I was good with people? There was a word for that. Charismatic? No. Magnetic? No, not that either.

Manipulative. I might have been a manipulative piece of garbage. Rallying a team together into a solid crew was one thing. Getting a group of kids who had no allegiance _to_ you to fight _for_ you was another. So was being able to talk your way out of serious trouble.

It made me feel like a jerk to think about it that way. But I was not going to spend the rest of the summer on lockdown at my house. What kind of a vacation was that?

...Probably more relaxing than the one I ended up having, but not nearly as stimulating!

"I can still smell popcorn," Laura complained, sitting around with me in the living room. We had finished an afternoon shift and had since changed out of theater clothes, "After showering and changing, I can still smell popcorn."

"It's on our uniforms, hon. You want it out, you've gotta wash 'em," She went to stand and do just that when I grabbed her and sat her back down, "You are not wasting detergent and water to wash our uniforms after one shift. You get used to the smell."

Laura remained obstinate in the mindset that I was not making a big enough deal of this, "You do not experience smell the way that I do."

"I don't experience most things the way you do," I acknowledged with a shrug, "So did you tell Logan about the whole Facility thing?"

Laura nodded, "Yes. He is on his way here," She revealed with no fanfare whatsoever.

"What?"

"I called him late last night, and he said he was coming here in the morning. I told him that you and I had to work today, so he said he would be here this evening."

"So by this evening, do you mean-?"

 ***DING-DONG***

"Now," Laura 'helpfully' informed me right after the doorbell rang.

I gave her a look before giving up on my attempt at relaying my annoyance with my eyes, "...For future reference, this is the kind of thing you're supposed to give me a heads up about," I said, "What's the use of having insomnia if people don't tell you about shit when it happens?"

Laura and I got up and headed to the door. My parents weren't home, still at the theater for the late shift, so that left me as the man of the house, for all that meant. It was probably for the best. Mister Logan probably wouldn't be subtle about what he wanted to talk about.

I opened the door, to find him standing there, dressed in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and more denim than I had seen anyone wear since the late 90s, "Laura. Glowstick," He greeted before taking a whiff of the air, "Hm. Smells like popcorn."

Laura gave me a look that said 'I told you so', "Goddamn claw people," I muttered, stepping aside to let him in, "I didn't know you were coming here until thirty seconds ago," And that was not an exaggeration.

At this, Mister Logan looked befuddled, "Laura didn't tell you?" He asked, scratching at his stubble, "Huh. I told her last night."

Laura was quick to defend her failure to inform me of important matters, such as her guardian dropping by, "Isn't it courteous to observe curfew rules in someone else's home?"

Come on now. I didn't buy that for a moment. She had been at my house long enough to know better, "We don't have curfew rules. Just don't be a jerk and wake other people up. That's it."

Speaking of other people, Logan wondered why the two of us had been the only ones to see who had been at the door, "Where's your parents?"

"Working," I answered vaguely.

He accepted that he didn't need to know any more than that, "They know?" About what had happened to us, specifically with the Facility and all of the fighting.

"They know what they should," I said, remaining unclear. I didn't know how much Laura had told him or wanted him to know. Not that any of it mattered at this point.

Mister Logan eyed me closely before nodding in acceptance. He then grabbed Laura's chin and looked her over, as though he would be able to see anything wrong with her just by giving her a quick check like that, "You doing alright, darlin'?"

Oddly enough, she didn't react to this. If it were me, I probably would have gotten slugged or stabbed, "Bellamy was able to reach me before anything irreversible could be done."

"Yeah, totally," I said, trying to play up my role in helping her out, "...You can't grow back organs, can you?" I whispered to Laura.

She took a moment to think about it. Thankfully, this was one thing she hadn't had to experience, "I'm not sure. I don't want to find out."

"You can," Mister Logan confirmed, getting a weird look from the two of us, "Don't ask how I know that."

With that behind us, Mister Logan came in, and Laura apparently had enough of the lingering theater popcorn smell that I couldn't notice, "I'm going to do something about this scent."

We had been over this already, and I expressed as much, "I told you, you're not gonna wash all of our clothes after every shift-."

"-I am going to do something about this scent," Laura reiterated with emphasis. I backed off. I didn't care that much, I just didn't feel like getting admonished by my parents for using up all of the detergent, "I will be right back."

With Laura traipsing off upstairs to gather up her work uniform, and presumably mine, that left me alone with Mister Logan. For the record, having a teacher in your house is really weird. It's even weirder when he raids your fridge for your dad's beer. I had to explain that later.

It didn't take Mister Logan long to get comfortable, kicking his feet up after taking a seat in my living room. Was he just going to hang out the whole time like that was cool? Not that I had a problem with it, but I really didn't need to bring any X-Men weirdness to my parents' doorstep. I had dodged a bullet with the Facility. Still, with Mister Logan being there, it opened up a solution to a problem that I'd put on the backburner for days.

"So, I need something from you," I ventured to ask, given that he was in my house, intruding on my hospitality. He raised an eyebrow and took a sip from his can, but he kept silent and didn't shoot me down outright. "I'm okay with tech for a kid, I think, but Saberwolf's stuff is way out of my league. After what happened, he needs someone to patch him up. And Laura told me about this guy the X-Men know – Forge."

"Let me guess. You want me to take robowolf to him?" I nodded, glad that he had caught on. He was less enthused about it than I was, "Why should I have to take your goddamn pet to get fixed?"

"Other than the fact that I don't know this guy? Because you owe me one for having Laura stay with me."

"Right. She stayed with you and she went and got kidnapped. Great job."

Now that was a sore spot. A very sore spot, "Fuck you," I said, much to his surprise. I didn't need to be reminded that this happened while she was my guest, "You seriously aren't blaming that on me. Look me in the eye and go ahead and fucking blame that on me."

He had probably been trying to make a joke. He did things like that sometimes. That was just how his humor tended to swing – to sarcasm and dark humor. If he had really been blaming me about it, he would have been a lot more fired up when Laura and I saw him. But I didn't see it that way at the time. The whole thing made me angry to think about.

I didn't care if squaring up to him got my ass beat. I'd take that beatdown all day to get my own shots in if he insinuated for a second that Laura got hurt because I was negligent. I would defy anyone to deal with that same situation under the same circumstances without advance knowledge and handle it.

He knew. He held my gaze for a long time to see if I would back down, because he would be damned if he was going to let a teenager get away with talking to him like that. I was already running through excuses in my head as to how the house got ruined because of a fight with my teacher. But that never came to pass.

Eventually, he got bored of the standoff and turned his eyes back toward the TV, "No. It happened on your watch, but it wasn't your fault. You did the best you could," I winced at that crap excuse for things not going right. I'd heard it already, too many times – once with the Danger Room, and again with Breakworld. Mister Logan noticed, "...Kid, I-."

Whatever he was going to say, I didn't want to hear it. The only thing that mattered was making sure my friend got patched up, "Are you gonna help Saberwolf get to this Forge guy, or not? I'd ask you to just give me the address, but I don't think my parents will let me out of San Francisco again for the rest of the break."

He seemed surprised to hear that I was going back, "They're still letting you go to the school?"

There had never been any question that I was. I was in too deep to go running scared back to public school now, "You say that like bad shit happening is exclusive to Xavier's school."

"Hm. Touche," Mister Logan admitted, lifting his hat off of his head as a form of kudos, "...You alright?"

I frowned at the question. I wasn't physically hurt. I'd been a little banged up after the incident, but it wasn't anything I couldn't just sleep off to recharge from, "I'm fine. Why?"

Mister Logan shook his head, "Not because of this. I mean, with everything. Up here," He said, tapping his temple, "A lotta shit's been dumped on you lately. No one ever checked with you after Kitty went missing either. A lot of us had our own things to work out after that. Armor came to me for more training, like you do. She's gettin' real good too."

"Just don't make her _too_ good. Like, better than me, good," I requested, dreading having a Hisako that could beat me consistently around, "The fact that I can kick her ass is like one of the only things I can hold over her head."

"Guess I just have to train you harder when you get back," He offered. I would for sure be taking him up on that when classes were back in session, "Seriously though, Glowstick. It's not good to keep all of this shit inside, or so I'm told. I ain't much for counseling, 'specially with kids, but do you have anything you need to say?"

The funny thing was... I really didn't, "No," I said, sounding amazed. I did have all of these nasty, cynical thoughts about the things that had happened to me, but after I had them, I let them go. That couldn't have been normal, to just get past such drastic events so easily, "I think that's the problem. I don't have anything I want to whine about."

"This ain't whining," Mister Logan growled, "You manned up and dealt with fucked up situations while they were happening, and you didn't make a peep. Good. I'm never gonna complain about having to work with a brat that doesn't act like one. But this shit sticks with you after the fact, and you don't seem like the 'drown your sorrows' type."

"No, I mean I really don't have a need to get anything off my chest," I said, trying to explain myself, "Mister Logan, I killed people. Killed soldiers working for the Facility. Killed U-Men."

"You did what you had to do to protect yourself and your friends. I know it's a drag to think about, but they'd have done a lot worse to you if-."

I held up a hand to stop him from his stock-standard survivor's remorse speech that he'd probably had queued up just for instances just like this, "No, dude, shut up. You're not listening. I'm trying to say I don't care," I deadpanned, "I killed them, thought about it for half a second when things got quiet and then-," I snapped my fingers, "-I let it go, just like that."

"Uh... well, just don't get used to it and you should be fine?" This was clearly unfamiliar ground for him. He might as well have shrugged at me, to give his confusion a physical act.

Ineeded to drive home just how foreign these thoughts of mine really were, "After we beat Kimura, my first idea was to drown her just so we'd be rid of her. The only reason I didn't was because it clearly freaked out the Hellions. That's not normal, right?"

No, it wasn't, because again, the Wolverine hesitated to say anything. It was a damning silence if ever there was one, "Did you like it?" He finally asked.

"I _nothing_ 'ed it," I grunted out sulkily, "It was like swatting flies... if the flies were racist and had hermetically sealed gear. It pissed me off that I had to do it for a second, and then it was over."

He took a moment to digest everything that I'd told him. That left an uncomfortable silence only broken by the sound of M*A*S*H reruns on the TV, "...You know I've got to tell Slim and Frost about this, right?" It sounded like he didn't want to but was aware that he had to.

In all fairness, he did. Having a mentally unstable kid in training with the other would-be X-Men was a ticking time bomb just waiting to happen. Besides, the whole X-Men don't kill was a load of crap for better p.r. with the general population.

Humans didn't like mutants to begin with. Having a team of them that could match the mighty Avengers and had no qualms with killing off human extremists that tons of people agreed with, whether they admitted it out loud or not, wouldn't go well. That was the reason why they didn't kill in the field. These were the things that went unsaid. You had to read between the lines for it, and a lot of people didn't. People like most students. The New Mutants were on the morality kick that killing was always wrong. The Hellions had the belief that we couldn't kill because we had to be better than our enemies.

I didn't have either of those one-dimensional mindsets, but to have no aversion to spilling someone's blood because they were bad guys trying to kill me? I remembered feeling disgusted about it back when I'd first met Saberwolf, and by the end of that same day I felt close to what I did now. It was that fast of a transition.

"I kind of want you to," I said honestly, "I don't know what's going on. I mean, I should feel something, right?" I didn't want to be a bleeding heart, but what if there really was something wrong with me? "Am I a sociopath?"

Fortunately for me, that leap of logic didn't pass muster for Mister Logan, "If you were, you wouldn't care enough to ask. Besides, you like people, and people like you. You're a surly, sarcastic dick a lot of the time, sure, but you ain't antisocial, and you do think about others."

XxX

When I said that I was in trouble, it wasn't just with my parents. That by itself would have been enough, but I had gotten in trouble with someone else.

Eddie had been right. When Megan found out that Laura was staying with me, she had been less than pleased. And this was a new experience for me. Not having someone upset with me. That happened so much, I just assumed it to be everyone's default response to most things I did. No, the new experience was having someone upset at me that I actually liked and cared for the opinion of.

Megan found out that Laura was staying with me. If I had told her, it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but that wasn't how she found out.

She got the scoop from a group picture I'd taken with Laura and the Hellions before we'd parted ways after kicking ass. Cessily had posted it on Facebook a few days later and tagged me in it, so it automatically showed up on my wall. Talk about a shitty way to find out your apparent boyfriend was staying with another woman.

...God, I'm stupid. How did I think this wouldn't be a problem?

By the time we had our first call after this particular social media post, everything had clicked. The moment I saw her face on the screen I immediately fell into apology mode, which was a big deal because I almost never apologized to anyone.

Still, even after admitting fault. I don't think the words 'I'm sorry' ever came out of my mouth. I really suck at apologizing.

"Please don't be upset," I was almost begging by this point of the conversation. Whatever it took, just so long as she stopped giving me that goddamn look, "I would have loved to have you come to California and hang out with me."

Megan just sat there on her bed, arms crossed, glaring at me. I had never been more rattled by someone surrounded by so many stuffed animals and different shades of pink, _"But I didn't, and I'm not,"_ She said, not cutting me any slack, _"Bellamy, you didn't even ask me if I would have wanted to go with you."_

"We haven't been dating that long," I explained, "And you had already planned to go back to Wales for the summer. I couldn't go with you, so I went home."

What I said had nothing to do with my unmentioned guest, which Megan picked up on, "And you brought Laura because she was available?"

Having disagreements with girls was awful, especially when you knew you were the one that fucked up. But I had to cover Laura's ass. She hadn't done anything wrong, "I brought Laura because she's my teammate – I'm responsible for her, even outside of school. More than that, I'm her friend too, " I said, "She didn't have anywhere else to go, and she isn't really a social person. She'd have been all alone at school for eight weeks."

Again, manipulation via words. I hadn't lied. That was how I really felt and thought. It was just that I was so honest and direct about the whole thing, it turned the tide of the conversation. Anyone with passing knowledge of Laura knew how lonely she usually was at school. And my failing to inform Megan of her presence hadn't been malicious. Just dumb.

From the turmoil on Megan's face, she wanted to keep a grudge, but couldn't find something worth holding onto without being petty, _"How can I be mad when you put it like that? It makes me sound like a... a... not nice person to have a problem with it,"_ It would have been easier to say 'bitch', but Megan tried to keep from cursing more than most kids our age that I knew, " _I just wish you would have told me. We talk like every other day. How did it take over a month for it to come up?"_

I didn't have an excuse, other than my crappy communication skills. Or more like, I had an excuse, but it was complete garbage, "That's how little I thought of it, I guess. It didn't even occur to me that it would be a problem."

-Which sounded stupid. I had to be more intelligent than that. Laura was fine as hell. Most people could see that. I could see that, even though I kept any comments about it to myself. Teasing her the way I did Hisako and other girls I knew would have little benefit for me, if she even reacted to it in any way at all. But facts were facts. We were together almost all of the time. Even more after the Facility thing. Sometimes, she stayed up all night to keep me company during my insomnia kicks. All by ourselves for hours.

Wolf didn't even bother chilling with me anymore. A few weeks in, most of the time he would ditch me to go to sleep in a heartbeat.

So yes, hindsight being what it was, I could absolutely see Eddie's point and why Megan would have had a problem. But as much as I was a fan of the female form, I wasn't going to cheat on anyone. What an awful thing to do to someone that cared enough to make themselves that to you. I guess I wasn't a sociopath after all, because if I was, that wouldn't have mattered to me. As things stood, I felt like more of an asshole than usual because I'd inadvertently made Megan feel bad, and all it would have taken to prevent it was a sentence in passing.

"If it makes you feel any better, karma got me back already," I said, pointing to the spots on my torso where Kimura put two bullets in me, "I got shot. Wanna see the scars?"

My shirt was halfway off before Megan could fully react, _"Bel! Are you alright?"_ I was not showing off how hard my body was. I popped my shirt off purely for the scars. The fact that she liked it was not intentional on my part. Honest, _"I mean, of course you are because I'm talking to you, but- you know what I mean! You got hurt again! Oh my God, I told you to take care of yourself!"_

"I know, I know. I tried," I said, chuckling at her half-hearted attempt to admonish me, "I'm a crap-catching magnet."

From there, the call mellowed out into our usual thing of talking about random stuff, keeping each other up-to-date, and trying to entertain each other. I was just glad she hadn't stayed angry at me. Hopefully it wouldn't come up again later, but I figured it probably wouldn't if I didn't do anything else absentmindedly.

When our call eventually ended about an hour later, I dropped back on my bed and sighed, "I've really got to do better when school starts again. I suck."

I knew I would be a poor boyfriend, but that didn't mean I wanted to be, or that I wasn't trying to keep that from being the case. The last thing I wanted was for a girl to look back on her time with me and regret it.

Either way, the particular stretch of trouble with me and Laura staying together wouldn't be an issue anymore. I looked to the side and saw all of my stuff packed up and ready to go. We were heading back to the school whenever Mister Logan turned back up the next day. It was probably for the best. It had been nice to head home, but if things were still going to be crazy no matter where I went, it was best to keep it away from my family. I was the one who signed up for this, not them.

I felt relieved. I was supposed to feel more comfortable at home than in some different place, wasn't I? I didn't even know how my parents felt about it. When Mister Logan brought it up earlier that night, they didn't seem surprised or against it. One thing was for certain, though. Things weren't the same as they were the first time I left.

I wasn't the same either. We all knew that.

XxX

It was weird being at school and not seeing a ton of people around during the daytime. The place was like a ghost town if you compared it to the way it was normally when classes were going.

The basketball courts were empty, which gave me plenty of space to burn time throwing up shots and playing the invisible opponent all by my lonesome. I was alone, just working up a sweat, at least until I was joined by the two people in charge of the school.

I saw Mister Summers and Miss Frost coming when I jogged off to grab a rebound from a missed shot. To acknowledge their presence, I threw a pass Mister Summers way. He caught it with a grin and took a shot the moment he stepped on to the court, a long three-pointer. It went in.

"Show off," I remarked, fetching the ball so I could idly dribble back over to the two of them, "I'm bored, but I don't think you're here for a game."

Miss Frost raised an eyebrow before gesturing down to her heeled feet with a scoff, "Please, darling. In these shoes?"

"I've got time. You can go get some flats and come back. I'll wait," The look on her face showed me just what she thought about that idea, even as a joke. I turned to Mister Summers, who probably would have been more up for it, "What about you? Let's see who wins one-on-one; the leader of the X-Men, or one incandescent boi."

"Maybe later," Mister Summers said, deflecting before getting down to business. "We actually came to talk to you about something. Logan came to speak to us about a talk you had."

I stopped dribbling and pressed the ball between my hands hard, "About me being a sociopath?"

Miss Frost leveled sharp blue eyes on me, clearly not liking my choice of self-description, "Your own words, Mister Marcher," "You are no such thing. But if you feel concerned, we will do our best to help you. How do you feel about therapy?"

I winced at the idea, "It hasn't really changed since the last time we did something like that," It was a different situation though. Then it had been because everyone thought I was crazy when I wasn't. Now... well, it just took a little longer than everyone figured for me to start losing it, "I don't have a problem at least trying," I had more or less asked for this, after all.

"We have a proposition for you," Mister Summers offered, "At the start of the new year, the school will have a new guidance counselor. He's very good. He's been doing great work with Kevin Ford. From Emma's team-."

I held up a hand to keep him from explaining further, "I know. We're acquainted," Kevin seemed moody and, for lack of a better term, emo. But he mostly seemed to have his head on straight, despite having death touch powers, "So, you want me to go see this counselor guy? Lead the way on this one?"

I must have gotten it right, because Miss Frost and Mister Summers looked at each other, "While his work with Kevin has been outstanding, it would be best if we had more of a sample size to work with," Miss Frost explained, "You're very different from Kevin and have different issues."

Oh, so I had 'issues' now? Well, they weren't wrong. That was the entire reason we had this conversation to begin with. I was apprehensive to sit down with someone outside of this world. It was why I didn't talk to my parents about it. It was why I didn't talk to anyone else my age about it that hadn't dealt with anything similar.

"If it helps, he's a very famous counselor," Miss Frost offered, "Sean Garrison. He works with athletes, superheroes, all kinds of public figures."

A guy like that should have been swimming in cash, and with way better options than talking to a bunch of ornery mutant kids, "Why is he taking a position as a guidance counselor then? Do you guys really pay that much?" I tried to joke.

Mister Summers took my joke seriously enough to explain the circumstances around the hire, "Dr. Garrison is a renowned supporter of mutant rights. He's been championing our cause for years. It isn't so strange that he would wish to help the children that are going to be our future."

I agreed, simply because I needed an outside opinion that I was crazy, "So how much should I tell him about all of the insane things that happen around here? Because that might scare him off, and I _really_ don't want to talk about some things, but he probably needs context of what he's gotten into."

Mister Summers reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, "He has files on our students in the X-Men training program. We plan to have all students in the program meet with him. When it comes to recent events involving the student body, he should be aware," He explained, "...This isn't a punishment by any means, Bellamy."

I didn't think it was, but I nodded. It was good to have that confirmed.

"We want you to be as adjusted as can be. None of what you've been dealing with is easy," Miss Frost said, "You've done an admirable job taking charge of the Paladins after what happened on Breakworld. None of this should have been on your shoulders."

"I've said it before – you are being trained to deal with threats in the future. The _distant future_ ," Mister Summers specified, a glare off of his visor making him look more serious than normal, "We need to make sure you can carry the load that comes with what that means. You and the rest of your peers. You would just be going first."

They didn't need to do any more convincing as far as I was concerned. If they were just practicing part of their spiel for the other trainees, that was fine. I had already made my decision, "I'll do it. But I wouldn't count on anyone else being told to go to therapy without a fight, just because you've got me going first," I said, getting an amused look from Miss Frost, "What? Did I say something wrong?"

Mister Summers spoke instead, "There's another reason we're having you lead the way with this, other than you being the first one we could talk to about it. You don't understand just how influential you are to the student body, do you?"

Miss Frost took that opportunity to interrupt, "Influential enough to throw a party off-campus that half of the student body attended," The basketball slipped from my hands and bounced off to the side of the court, "Mmm. Yes, that face was worth waiting almost two months to see."

They knew? I thought I'd pulled a major coup making sure that party went off without a hitch. I patted myself on the back about it for days afterwards. I still got 'too sweets' from the few people left in the hall who had to stay back for vacation! Why didn't they just bust me right after they found out about it, instead of letting me think I'd gotten away with it?

Miss Frost reached out and took great pleasure in pushing my lower jaw shut, "Close your mouth, darling. There are mosquitoes out," I shook myself loose from her grip and glared at her, "The point is, you are a figure here. This institute doesn't have sports teams or any other means for students to be major symbols representing the school. It only stands to reason that all of the student squads would be."

It made sense. Everyone knew us. Everyone saw us all over campus in our uniforms, clearly being trained in something more than just learning how to control our powers. And the damn school spectator sport that Field Day was. Sheesh.

Mister Summers added onto his lover's point, driving the nail of my status home deeper, "-And out of all of the trainees, you've been through arguably the most crap since you joined, so everyone knows about it."

Miss Frost casually flipped her hair, "Honestly, we were probably going to ask you to see Dr. Garrison first, even if this sudden concern over your value of life didn't come up. You have issues that we could see visible difference in if taken care of, and out of all of the trainees that have similarly prevalent issues, you're the most agreeable."

I had to stop and run things through my head with three of the most extreme personality examples amongst my fellow X-Men trainees that I could find.

Julian Keller from the Hellions? The guy was narcissistic and had an inferiority complex, which sounded like an impossibly dangerous combination with the amount of power he had. There was no way he would take well to this if he had to go first.

Noriko Ashida from the New Mutants? Attitude problems and a nasty temper with dangerous powers to boot. She was fine if you could deal with how in your face she was, but if you were at odds with her for any reason, things got difficult quick. She was a very obstinate sort. Definitely not the type to test the waters on with the new school shrink.

Laura Kinney from my own team? Yeah, we're not even going to start there. I didn't care how good this Dr. Garrison was supposed to be. The Gordian knot that was Laura's scrambled noodle was not the problem you approached to prove you were a capable of working with kids in high-stress situations. It was a masochist's run... which explained why I spent so much time trying to help her adjust. God, I'm sick in the head.

No, Miss Frost was absolutely right. Dealing with the lot of us was like dipping into a fucking rainbow stew of teenage angst and instability. We all had problems, most of us thought those problems were the center of the universe, and when we lashed out we just so happened to have superpowers we were still learning to control to back it up. How the hell had a designated counselor not been implemented sooner? Advisors couldn't handle everything on top of the duties they already had. Then again, as far as I knew, this had been the first full year for X-Men training squads, so they were still working the system out.

And it just so happened that yours truly was the perfect guinea pig for it.

" _Well look who's turning into the head honcho's new favorite,"_ A voice said inside of my head, _"You're just a good little toy soldier, aren't you?"_

What kind of a thought was that to have? What the hell was wrong with me?

XxX

During the tail end of summer, it was lonely at school. There weren't a whole lot of people around that I knew to do stuff with. There was Nicky from the Paragons, Josh and Noriko from the New Mutants, but we weren't great friends.

Laura was off somewhere with Mister Logan, probably on some bonding excursion for fathers and daughters… brothers and sisters… err, DNA originals and clones. This gave me plenty of time alone with my thoughts, which was always a dangerous thing.

There were a lot of issues for me to deal with when school started up again. And it wasn't just the me being crazy thing, or the being a better boyfriend to Pixie thing. Those were things I needed to deal with, but I already had things in mind for those.

Having some time away from the institute after losing Miss Pryde could have only done the Paladins good, but we still didn't have an advisor. None of us had ever brought it up, and none of us wanted to, but the fact was that we needed one. That would be an uncomfortable thing to deal with once it happened, both for us and whoever was unlucky enough to be slotted in to look out for us.

Then there was me and Hisako basically being X-Men reserves. I hadn't forgotten that discovery. We were basically forced to step up to the plate or die on Breakworld, and now the X-Men knew we could deal with it. We weren't supposed to have to, not yet at least, but who was Mister Summers kidding? Whether it was designed or not, we would be on the front lines again sooner rather than later.

Until then, I was in charge. Legitimately in charge. Oh joy. I'd dabbled around with it around the end of the school year, but who knew how long it would last from here on out. Things were going to get harder before they got any easier... if they ever got easier.

 _"Oh yeah, you're the new hotshot big-shit around here now, just like Frost said, right? For someone who's supposed to be badass, you're an insecure pussy."_

That stray thought caused me to stop and look around. That couldn't have been me thinking to myself. It didn't sound like my voice. It was a dude voice, but therein lay an inconsistency. I didn't know any dude telepaths. Ruth, Miss Frost, the Cuckoos – all the telepaths I knew were women.

Not to say that there weren't dude telepaths, but hell if I knew any.

...And that did seem like something I would say to myself when I caught myself in my feelings, or indeed acted like a pussy about something.

Cool. Just more evidence that I was losing my shit. The more I thought about it, the more my going to this school shrink seemed like a good idea. Boy did I need a friend at the moment. But sometimes, when you want something really bad, the universe provides.

Without fanfare, without a word, Saberwolf wandered into the room and plopped himself down on the floor at the foot of my bed.

For months, _months_ , Wolf had insisted that the stay at Xavier's was temporary. He always said that when he had the opportunity he would go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted; that he would not hang out with me like a pet forever, not that I would ever personally consider him one.

We were square now, if pride were the thing keeping him around. I'd freed him from captivity, he'd helped me free one of my friends from captivity. I'd saved his life, he'd saved my life. I expected him to shove off after Forge was done with him, and yet there he was, as though leaving had never crossed his mind.

I just stared at him for several seconds, eyebrow raised, until I finally broke out in a grin.

"...Welcome back, buddy," I said before changing my statement, "No. Welcome home."

That was all it took to piss off the cantankerous A.I., "Be quiet," He demanded. However, I didn't let up.

"I knew you loved me."

"I told you to be quiet."

"You could have been anywhere in the world right now, but you're here with me," I continued to insist, hand on my heart, "Mister Logan had the Blackbird. He could have dropped you anywhere your little synthetic heart desired, but you came back to _me_!"

"I hate you."

"Aw, you're my friend too, Saberwolf," The panel of his back opened up to reveal his chainsaw, "I know you tend to think of yourself as a one-man wolf pack. But when you met me, you knew I was one of your own, and you thought to yourself, 'Could it be?' And now you know for sure. Your wolf pack had grown by one," By now the chainsaw was actively revving, held in the grasp of his tail, "Now there are two of us in the wolf pack. You were alone in the pack, and then I joined in later. Now it's two of us wolves, running around the world together, tearing shit up."

He could threaten me all he wanted. I knew full well he wasn't going to Texas Chainsaw Massacre me indoors and mess up the walls and the floor and the bed, and he did too. After all, my Wolf had home training.

When he put the weapon away, I hopped up from the bed and walked toward him slowly, my arms extended wide, "Aww... get ready, big guy! I'm coming in for a hug. Here comes the Bro Train, pulling into Friendship Junction!"

"Yes. Give me a hug," Wolf said, standing up and suddenly becoming very sharp and pointy, "I can think of nothing I would rather do right now."

It was at that point I noticed that the dangerous edges he used to have now folded in flatly to make him safer to the touch, "...Those are new," I got closer to poke at the razor-sharp additions to his form, "Did you get a new body? I thought you were just going in for repairs! I didn't think you'd get hooked up with new stuff!"

Wolf had always been kind of dangerous to touch. He had a lot of edges that could cut you open if you weren't paying attention. Now though, he still had them, but they were retractable, making him much sleeker when he wanted to be. That was awesome.

"It is new armor," Wolf said, putting his sharp bits away, "I asked Forge for upgrades. His understanding of my systems is... frightening. All he needed was a look at my inner workings to repair my injuries and upgrade me."

Forge did all of this over the course of a few days. That was impressive. Wolf seemed impressed as well, and that wasn't an easy thing to do, "Huh. Maybe that guy should be a teacher or something? Then maybe I could learn to fix you myself."

Wolf shook his head and paced over to my Playstation and box full of games to find something for the two of us to play together, "He has said that he is a terrible teacher. His knowledge is intuitive, not something that he can necessarily show someone else."

Damn. Well, we couldn't always get what we wanted. I'd just have to keep studying on my own and in classes to get my technological know-how, as slow-going as it was.

I kicked my feet up to relax, and Wolf linked up with the Playstation to get our game going. No point in procrastinating in getting back to the school swing of things, "I'm glad you're here. This place is a lot creepier without all of the other students around," I told him, "I have to walk around and look to find any people, but it feels like someone's watching me all the time. It's weird."

Wolf lazily flicked his tail as we set the match up in our fighting game, "I would say that you are being paranoid, but history has proven in the past that this is not often the case with you. Be vigilant," He warned.

I scoffed as our bout began loading up to play, "Of course. I never sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death. Have you learned nothing from Nas?" Wolf didn't react past turning his head to look at me, as if to ask what the hell I was talking about. I was disappointed, "...All of my friends are uncultured swine."

XxX

TV had to be one of the worst inventions for productivity ever created. It didn't matter what you had planned that day to be useful, plop down in front of a TV and have your attention stray for a moment. The next thing you know, bam! Forty-five minutes flies past, and you don't care.

I was so comfortable where I'd been sitting on the couch, just hanging out and preparing my snack, felt like I had just melted into the cushions. It had to be illegal to be this lazy. I wasn't even tired. I was just content with turning my brain off for a moment. There wasn't even so much as a stray thought running through my head. There was only a feeling of lucid comfort.

My brain rebooted when a stray figure moved past my field of vision, catching my full attention. A girl wearing itty-bitty blue shorts and a pink tanktop that looked to be a tad tight on her chest. The metal gauntlets on her arms and her electric blue hair clued me in that it was Noriko. In her case, bravo.

Goddamn it, I love summer. Also, I was a _shitty_ person to have as a boyfriend, jeez. Was it really that easy to distract me? I was supposed to be a superhero trainee, but I clearly had a weakness. Just stick a hot girl in front of me and watch me tune out everything else. An assassin could have rolled up and put a bullet in my head from up close, and I wouldn't have noticed it.

Maybe I just needed to get laid? I hadn't seen Megan in-person in almost two months. Keeping a trans-Atlantic relationship going, especially a new one, was a bitch.

Noriko walked up and stared at me with an odd expression on her face as she observed me. I froze like a deer in the headlights. Had she caught me checking her out?

She raised an eyebrow and pointed at what I was holding, "What are you eating?" She asked about my snack wrapped in aluminum foil.

"Baked potato," I said resuming my chewing after having gone still for several seconds to ogle her, "...It's good."

So lame. At least saying that had rebooted my brain enough to the point where there was more on my mind than T&A. Far too many fine women went to this school.

Noriko watched me munch on the morsel in my hand with distaste, "You microwaved a potato just to eat it straight up? No butter, cheese, sour cream? Nothing? Gross."

I looked down at the potato, then up to her, back and forth several times, "There's butter on it. Besides, I didn't use a microwave, or an oven. I cooked this stupid thing in my hands," I let a glow come to my hands to show how I heated it up, "Oh yeah. I've got it like that, baby."

Despite Noriko's initial misgivings, she did seem to be intrigued, "Huh. Do you think I could do that with these?" She asked, holding up her gauntlet-covered hands.

Maybe, if she didn't mind getting crud from food on those things, "I dunno. How much control you got over your output?" I asked, "Also, I have no idea what food cooked with pure electricity would taste like."

Her nose wrinkled up at the thought of probably burning whatever she cooked black, "Probably bad," She said with a sigh as she took a seat nearby further down on the long couch, "I'm bored, Bel."

That drew a scoff out of me. That made two of us. Why the hell else would I have baked a potato with my bare hands? I didn't come up with asinine, mundane ways to use my powers when I had tons of stuff going on.

"That sucks. Where's your crew? Mine are all off at home," I said, trying to make conversation. Not that I really cared about her being bored. My own entertainment took priority.

Nori gestured inconclusively, "Josh is around... somewhere. Everyone else is gone though."

It explained why she stopped to talk to me. We were cordial, but we weren't super-close. She was good friends with Hisako though, making us acquaintances by default. When we weren't getting chippy with each other, we got along well enough, "Not you?"

"Not me. Nowhere to go," She seemed to leave it at that, so I didn't bother trying to pry. Her problems were her problems. Unless she wanted to share, that was how they would be, "So how was _your_ vacation?"

"It was alright when people weren't trying to kill me. But that was only like... three days of it," I said, waving off the life-threatening aspect of my time away. There were other pressing matters on my mind, and there was a chance that she could help, "...Hey, how many telepaths are in this place?"

My spontaneous question garnered a confused look, "Why do you care?"

I shrugged my shoulders in response, "Just humor me. I think I've got them all listed," I said, tapping my own head with my baked potato. I may or may not have gotten butter on my hat in doing so, "Just trying to make sure I have my bases covered."

Noriko remained pretty skeptical about my intentions, but I guess she couldn't find a reason to dig any deeper, "Fine. There's Emma Frost, the Cuckoos, Blindfold. There's Rachel Grey and Psylocke too, but they aren't around here much…"

I picked up on a pattern that leaned heavily toward my original hunch, "Are there any telepaths here that _aren't_ chicks?" Nori narrowed her eyes and a stray bolt of electricity flicked away from her body. She must have been annoyed, "I'm not being sexist. I keep hearing a dude's voice in my head sometimes. It's not mine."

"You sure you're not just losing your shit?" She shot back as a joke. I didn't laugh or smile, "…Oh, you're serious."

"Dead serious," In addition to everything else, schizophrenia was the last thing I needed heaped onto my pile.

Nori crossed her arms, trying to wrack her brain to give me a hand, "I don't know any, other than Professor Xavier, but he hasn't been around here forever. I don't think I've ever met the guy."

I shook my head in the negative, "It wasn't some old dude, unless he can disguise the sound of his mind. The voice sounded younger," Besides, what would the guy who founded the damn school want with me?

She was running out of names, so she decided to throw out one more possibility, "Well… there was one other guy. This was before my time here though. I haven't been here much longer than you, remember?" I nodded and gestured for her to go on, "Right. Well, before I got here there was a big riot on campus. This one guy started it. Did you know there used to be more Cuckoos here?"

That was news to me. My eyebrows rose underneath the brim of my hat, "There were more of them? Jesus, that sounds terrifyingly hot."

Noriko rolled her eyes, letting my hormone-driven remark slide, "Yeah, well one of them died during the riot. I don't know any more. You'd have to talk to them about it for more details. I think Laurie is the only person who was around for that one, and she's not exactly here to ask about it."

Right. Laurie Collins. Wallflower. She actually had a mother that didn't live very far away from the school. But I wasn't going to go and bug a girl I barely knew to get some info to help chase shadows.

That left me one primary option – to talk to the Cuckoos. I didn't foresee that going well at all. To begin with, they were kind of intimidating, what with the whole psychic triplets hive mind thing they had going on. They didn't really like most people and seemed stuck up. Even worse, they could probably tell that I thought that, no matter how I approached them, and that would color whatever interaction we had after that point.

Well, what was a new school year without expanding one's horizons? Reaching out to new people, establishing contacts, and making friends. Learning from and about other people. And maybe having your brain melted by sexy psychic triplets. But by now I had gotten used to there being risks in any random thing I decided to do around there. Only at Xavier's.

...God, I love being at school.

* * *

 **That's the chapter, guys. More of a downtime chapter to set up a return to the school for more hijinks. There are several irons in the fire for starting plot points to begin the school term with. Let's see what shakes out for our main man and the people associated with him. There's never a lack of shit to be slung in the direction of the mutant crew.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed. Things gon' get going again next time around.**

 **Until then, Kenchi out.**


	24. Back To School

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Marvel. There's gonna be Marvel movies out the ass, and I'm so ready. Infinity Wars next week, then Deadpool 2 next month. My body is ready.

 **Chapter 24: Back To School**

* * *

Therapy is hands down one of the most awkward experiences a human being might ever endure. Now please note, I never said it was the worst. That would be ignorant to say. Obviously, there are countless things that are realistically worse than something as mundane as going to therapy, but there's just something embarrassing about sitting in front of a stranger, and spilling all of your thoughts and misgivings in an effort to 'fix' you. It's as if you can't be trusted with yourself as a person.

Sitting on a damn chair in front of Dr. Sean Garrison was that awkward moment for me. I'm not sure what I looked like from his point of view. I hoped I was cool, calm, collected. Unflappable, even. In my heart though, I knew I wasn't special. I more than likely looked like the other countless fidgety, uncertain patients that had been stuck in front of him.

"Are you uncomfortable, Bellamy?"

Yeah, to receive that question, I definitely came off as a jumpy teenager.

Dr. Garrison was a man with thick blonde hair and immaculate taste in clothes. Seriously, that dapper fuck could rock a $3000 Versace suit. That much should be said. I wouldn't even know what to do with myself in threads like that. What kind of therapist could afford those kinds of clothes to go to work in?

I cleared my throat from where I chose to lay down and relax during my session, "I'm fine, doctor," I said, "Just... trying to adjust. I'm not really good at talking about myself, which is all this is going to be."

I did not feel like spilling my guts and divulging all of my insecurities and whatnot to some random-ass psychiatrist just because it was school-mandated. Bellamy Marcher did not get down like that.

Dr. Garrison didn't seem bothered by anything I'd said, "Well, it doesn't have to be. Not necessarily. I don't expect you to trust me just like that. If you find it strange to try and open up, we can ease into that. Do you know why you find it hard to talk about yourself?"

Okay, so we were going to jump right into the deep end of my being an asshole huh? Well, feet first we go, "Because in my personal experience, most of the time, the people who really care about your problems can't help you, and the people who can help you really don't care about your problems," I said honestly, "There's no point to talking about your feelings. It's like a placebo effect. It doesn't really solve anything."

Dr. Garrison took note of what I'd said. Yeah, he should have underlined it too, for emphasis. I believed every word, "Interesting. Your file says you lead a squad of fellow students. That's an odd way of thinking for a leader to have."

Maybe, but that was how things were. I was who I was, "I'm not an emotional problem-solver. I'm better when the issues are something I can touch and deal with in the real world, you know? Give me a solution I can get my hands on... think about. That's when I'm fine."

Dr. Garrison's eyebrows rose in interest, "Oh, could you tell me more about some of those situations? It sounds like you feel comfortable when you're presented with a problem."

I went to give him some examples of problems that I'd managed to work out, only to stop when I figured out that I couldn't.

I wasn't actually proud of any of the things I'd dealt with. Other people were. I never talked myself up about the enemies I'd fought. Other people did. My cocky bullshit usually never came from the events I had been a part of, because I openly recognized my own failure in those situations.

I couldn't save other people when it counted. My own teacher wound up lost in space trying to save the planet because I couldn't get the job done myself.

"Bellamy?"

I found myself too caught up in my own thoughts and went too long without answering his question, "I... I..." I struggled with keeping things to myself. Normally I wouldn't have said a thing, but the words just came out. "I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be," I said before gagging at the half-assed spiel that had just come out of my mouth, "No... actually, I suck."

I was catching him off-guard with what I was saying. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, "You don't agree with the decision to make you the team leader?"

Not really. I never said it after the choice had been made, but I'd thought about it a lot since then. I was the best option. That was all there was to it, "Out of everyone on the team, I'm the only one who could have done it. And it was the last thing Miss Pryde really asked me to do before she disappeared," I said, "I love my team, and I respect her too much to say she made a mistake. But... I don't know."

What did it matter if he knew what I was thinking? What exactly was he going to do with it? Tell Mister Summers and Miss Frost? What did that matter?

Dr. Garrison set his notes aside, lacing his hands together in his lap before he addressed what I had just told him, "Bellamy, I don't know enough about you to give you any advice yet. Right now, all I can do is hear you out and listen to what you have to say," "It seems like that's what you might need more than anything else right now."

He was right. It felt good to say these things. It felt good to let things out from someone that wasn't going to see me during my day-to-day ordeals. I didn't have to be strong, or seem like I knew what I was doing. All I had to do was what I was good at doing in the first place – run my mouth.

Perhaps this therapy crap wouldn't be so bad after all.

XxX

I needed some goddamn answers, and at last check there was only one place where I could start to get them. The only issue was who had had to get them from.

I had never directly interacted with the Cuckoos. I never had a need to. We weren't on a team, we didn't have the same classes, and normally if I had need of a telepath I had one nearby who actually liked me, even if she was hard to understand sometimes.

...Well, I didn't know if the Cuckoos necessarily _dis_ liked me. I just automatically assumed everyone did until proven otherwise. We'd never really had the pleasure of engaging in any kind of extended conversation. Sure, they had been at my party, but that didn't mean anything. There had been alcohol and a chance to get laid. Plenty of reason for anyone to show up, even if they hated me.

The easiest way to find anyone in school was normally to just ask around, but since the student body was down to mere low double digits until the summer break ended, I had to do it the hard way; by looking around and thinking really hard. That was my tried and true strategy to locate telepaths. Eventually they would hear you and tell you to shut up, or tell you where they were.

Eventually, I got a ping that led me to a common area with a piano where I found the three sisters sitting around. One was watching TV, another was reading, and the third was playing the aforementioned piano.

Three gorgeous blonde triplets, identical in every way appearance-wise. They didn't even try to make it easy on anyone trying to tell them apart by dressing differently. If I shut my eyes for ten seconds to let them switch places, I wouldn't have been able to tell who went where.

...And I probably thought that loud enough for them to pick up on it. Great. Oh well. The worse they could do was tell me to buzz off, and so I approached them as casually as I could. I had no reason to be nervous. I just wanted to ask a question.

"Hey, girls," I said, stepping into the room where I moved over to the piano. I was jealous that one of them could play an instrument well. I never did get around to starting guitar lessons while I'd been back home. Maybe a piano would be more my speed?

"It isn't so hard," The Cuckoo sister at the piano commented as though I had been speaking out loud, "If you can do something like fly a jet, I'm certain you can figure out how to play a piano with lessons."

"Oh," I said, a little taken aback at getting my mind passively read. The three of them all together were supposed to be stronger than Miss Frost, so it wasn't a surprise, "I'll try and look into that when classes start up again. There has to be someone around willing to teach me how."

From the nearby couch, another of the Cuckoos set her book aside with a roll of her eyes, "Mindee, stop humoring him. We know why you're here, Bellamy," She said, apparently not amused at my attempts to small talk, "You want to ask us a question."

She was right, but I was confused when she didn't either turn me down or go into more detail, "...Do you know what that question is?" I asked, mentally marking the Cuckoo at the piano as Mindee. One down, two left to detail.

She frowned at me and shook her head, "No. We can't tell that much. You have very good psychic shielding," She seemed annoyed by this.

That sounded like a contradiction to me. As far as I was aware, they read me walking into the room, "Didn't you guys just read my mind a minute ago?" I asked.

"Yes, but these were thoughts you had at the surface. They weren't very hard to see, and you weren't trying to resist. Anything deeper though, and things get muddled."

The third Cuckoo who had been more focused on the TV than anything else reached out to swat at her book-reading sister, "Oh, Celeste. Don't be grumpy just because you can't see past the surface in his head. He does spend a lot of time with Blindfold. I wouldn't be surprised if he allows her to practice her telepathy on him."

I did. A lot. I was the only one on the team with the balls to. My only rule with Ruth was not to do anything in my head that she couldn't put back to normal, or that would end up with Eddie or Hisako putting me on Youtube.

"How personal," Mindee purred from her place at the piano, "You must trust her a lot to allow her access to your mind like that. Who knows what she could have you do with that kind of access?"

I didn't like that smile. The last thing I needed was more people trying to stir up shit, "How else is she gonna get any better if she doesn't work with someone?" I said before waving the whole thing off, "Besides, I'm fine. And as a side-effect, apparently you can't read the depths of my brain. I'd say that means it's worked out so far."

Celeste seemed to take this as a personal challenge, "Oh, we could still get to the bottom of your mind if we all tried at once. I'm not sure your psyche would survive the attempt though," She was absolutely a protégé of Miss Frost.

I slumped my shoulders in defeat. Getting turned into a vegetable just so the girls could prove a point wasn't my idea of fun, "Please don't. I've still got stuff to do today."

The third Cuckoo giggled at my powerless expense, "Oh, don't worry. Miss Frost wouldn't like it if we broke you."

Mindee reached over to pat me on the head. People always touched my head because of the hat, "Yes, yes, Phoebe is right... you're the new project. There are high hopes for you, you know."

No, I _didn't_ know. Seriously, "You're kidding, right?" I asked, plopping down on a couch near two of the sisters. I wanted to hear more of this, "The last time I checked, Frost hates me, and Summers... I don't know, he 'nothings' me."

All of the Cuckoos turned to look at me, their eyes glowing a ghastly blue as they spoke in unison, "Are you telling psychics that they don't know what they've seen in others' heads?"

All of a sudden, I regretted sitting down. Goddamn Three-In-One. They were some seriously scary chicks when they wanted to be, "No, but the two people we're talking about are a psychic that could fight you off, and a guy that exclusively plows telepaths."

Their hive mind psychic intimidation thing faded away just like that. The wonders that having a solid point could do for you, "Well it's your right to be skeptical," Celeste said, "But we wouldn't lie to you. There's no point."

"I never said you would. I didn't think it either," I said with a cheeky grin, tapping at my own dome for emphasis. Hey, one of them laughed, "So, about that help I came for. I've prepared a payment in exchange for your help. I think you guys'll-."

"-You don't have to bribe us to ask a question, Bellamy," All three girls said as one, cutting me off.

I had to take a moment to rationalize that with my expectations. People who weren't close to me normally didn't help me just because they could, "Oh. Okay. Cool. Um... I'll be honest, I expected this to be a lot harder," As I rambled, all of the Cuckoos just sat, waiting for me to cut to the chase, "Ahem, well... I'm just looking for some information. Before I got here, there was some kind of riot," I would have been a fool to notice their faces fall, "If it's something you don't want to talk about..."

"No," Phoebe said, "It's... good that people don't forget about what happened that day."

This was a sensitive topic for them. Obviously. From what I'd heard, one of their sisters died during the riot, I tried to treat lightly, "Was there a telepath involved? Not you guys, I mean. I'm talking about a dude."

All of their faces twisted up in complete revulsion, "Quentin Quire," They all said with a disgusted shudder.

They didn't hesitate to give me a name. I'd hit a nerve. One that would give me what I wanted to know, "Who?"

All of the Cuckoos looked at each other before letting their feelings spill forth.

"A psychic. A telepath."

"A vile boy."

"His thoughts were disturbing, and so loud."

"The way he looked at us. At Sophie."

All three girls looked at each other before concluding their description of him, "Ew," They said in unison. I tried not to laugh. It wasn't a time for humor, even if that had been hilarious.

"Okay," I said, trying to wipe the smile off of my face and be serious, "So what happened to this guy?"

"He was on drugs. Very powerful drugs. They sent his powers into overdrive."

Okay, yeah. It didn't seem like a good idea to take mind-altering substances when your power revolved around your brain. That wasn't an intelligent move at all, "I'm guessing that didn't end well for him."

The Cuckoos all shook their heads as one before Celeste spoke, "His body couldn't handle it. None of the teachers or X-Men could stop it. His body was destroyed."

Phoebe picked up from there, "No one ever saw it. No one ever told the school what really happened to him. They say he died, but we can still hear him."

Aha! So it wasn't just me! That was a fine bit of info to have, "Where?"

"Down in Dr. McCoy's laboratory," Phoebe said.

A dead kid was still capable of thinking out loud enough for people like me and them to hear, "How? Do we have ghosts, or something?" In the grand scheme of things, that wouldn't have been so far-fetched, "...I mean, with everything else that happens around here, that wouldn't really surprise me, but in this case-."

Mindee cut me off before I could finish verbalizing my thought, "-We don't know. That area is in the sub-levels, off-limits to everyone except top staff," She said before tilting her head curiously, "But you have been inside of there before, haven't you?"

I had been. But I didn't remember seeing anything. To be fair, there had been a lot going on, "Uh, I was kind of busy trying not to get killed by the Danger Room and an alien at the time. And it was Dr. McCoy's lab. I had no idea of 90% of what I was looking at."

Besides, there had been plenty of psychic fuckery to go around that day. It would have been hard to pin it down to one source or another. More pressing things were afoot, and my attention was quickly turned to keeping the Earth from getting destroyed by Breakworld.

Celeste shrugged at my answer, "If what's happening with you is really such an issue, whatever is left of Quentin Quire is there."

Great. More stuff that I shouldn't have known about and couldn't get myself to without getting in trouble.

XxX

A week or so later, students started filtering back onto campus for the start of the fall semester. Normally, school starting back up was a major buzzkill, but for me it meant that I would get to hang out with all of my closest friends again – Ruth, Hisako, even Laura found her way back. And of course, there was my goddamn hype man, Eddie.

"Dude!"

"Dude!"

All of the students were inside of the main auditorium for the opening address from the faculty. When I saw that red-haired son of a bitch walk in, I was ecstatic. I'm pretty sure when I got up to run over and greet him, I crawled over every other kid in my row, including Ruth and Laura, and shoved two or three people out of the way in the aisle.

No, I didn't think of how much of an asshole that made me look like. I was more concerned with 'too sweeting' the last straggler of my crew. It had been too long.

"That was fucking magical," I remarked when we sat back down. Eddie sat on the other side of Hisako, who was on my other side.

"You two are way too happy to see each other," Hisako replied. Even as she said that, she was leaning over to give Eddie a gigantic hug. She'd missed him too, "Good to see you, Wing."

"Why wouldn't I be happy to see Eddie?" I said, sounding offended that she would try to downplay my joy at having all five members of my squad around me again, "This is, like, the last all-important piece of my entire crew getting back together. I feel so warm and insulated right now."

My enthusiasm for our long-awaited reunion was shared by Eddie. Of course it was. I could always count on that guy to have my back, "It's time to fucking form Voltron up in this bitch. The Paladins are back!" He exclaimed before the grin fell from his face and he settled back into his seat, "Well, most of us are."

It was a nasty reminder that we were missing one person; our teacher. She was still hurtling through space somewhere in a giant, planet-shattering bullet.

Hisako reached behind Ruth and nudged me to get my attention, "Hey, you and Laura were here before any of us. Did anyone tell you what they were going to do with our team?"

It was a good question, and not one I had been able to get an answer to, the few opportunities I'd had to try, "Afraid not. I'm pretty sure they've been working it out all summer trying to... get us a new advisor."

There was no way they would let me run the whole thing myself again like I had to at the end of the last semester. I couldn't. I didn't know anything about the administrative crap that squad advisors had to do. I did the bare minimum. And I didn't know how to train us either. We wouldn't get any better without real supervision, and I didn't have nearly enough experience to serve in any kind of advisory capacity. I was greener than grass.

The whole in-house staff was on the stage, from the headmaster and headmistress on down. Several of them gave us speeches and whatnot. This was mostly for the new students, because listening to it, I tuned out in about five minutes. I was glad I came in after the start of the term so I didn't have to sit through this before.

They reintroduced all of the teachers, associating them with the student training squads they worked with if they had them. Nothing had really changed from the last year, only a few advisors had been added for new squads being formed. None of it caught my attention until one introduction in particular.

"Piotr Rasputin," Mister Summers said, gesturing to the large Russian man we had been acquainted with, "He'll be teaching art courses this coming year. He will also be the interim advisor for the Paladins."

The five of us all just looked at each other, likely with similar thoughts. Miss Pryde's boyfriend was going to be our advisor for the foreseeable future. None of us expected anything less than a completely awkward experience.

XxX

We got together after the assembly with Mister Rasputin in the room that would serve as his studio/classroom when classes started back up on Monday. It wasn't an easy matter trying to break the ice between us, even though we had already been previously acquainted. We hadn't interacted in any meaningful way since Miss Pryde went missing.

Obviously, he'd had his own things to work through in the aftermath of that whole mess. We all did. Fortunately for us, we had each other and lots of other things going on. Also, we hadn't known her for as long as he did. And the two of them had been romantically involved. It was hard to imagine what was going on inside of Mister Rasputin's head. I mean, I could have asked Ruth, but that would have been in bad form.

We all sat around the studio, huddled together in our various ways. Eddie and Hisako stuck together closer than the others. Laura hovered just outside of our little circle. I was sitting on a desk with Ruthie on my back.

"Well, I guess we should reintroduce ourselves. You know me and Hisako better than the others," I said, trying to jump-start the conversation, "This is Laura. She has claws and shit," I pointed over to the dour young lady in question before gesturing to our red-haired mobility specialist, "This is Eddie. He flies," I then jerked my thumb to the blindfolded girl resting piggyback on me, "This is Ruth. She has brain powers," Ruth waved at our soon-to-be advisor.

"So... this is happening," Eddie said with a sigh, "Well, at least they aren't breaking us up, which is good, considering at least two of us probably have an open invitation to the X-Men."

He had been referring to me, Hisako, and maybe Laura. This normally would have been a badge of honor, but I sneered at the thought. I couldn't imagine the level of bitch-fit I would throw if the Paladins were broken up. It wasn't just that I thought we were a good team. They were my closest friends.

Mister Rasputin held up a hand, as though to keep those kinds of ideas at bay, "Scott believes that breaking you up would be a waste of what you are all capable of, and insulting to what you've been through. He spoke with me through the summer about working with you, and I accepted last week," He told us, "I am not trying to replace Katya. I could not. I just feel like I need to do something, and helping you all, teaching you what I can… I believe it is the best way to do that."

He'd been making a heartfelt speech, but he didn't really need to. It was going to be an adjustment period for all of us, but that also meant we were all in it together.

"Mr. Rasputin, it's cool. You don't have to come in here and give us the whole stepdad speech," I said, trying to mellow things out a bit. The atmosphere was too tense for my tastes, "This whole thing is messed up, and there's nothing any of us can do about it but deal with it."

Hisako shrugged her shoulders and chimed in, "Yeah. And if that's the way it is, well, why should you have to do it by yourself?"

Mister Rasputin stood up from where he'd been sitting, making me realize, not for the first time, just how gigantic the guy was, "You were all with Katya while I was dead. You are the closest thing I have to her. I will do right by you as her students, and now as mine."

All any of us could say was one thing, and Eddie beat the rest of us to it, "Welcome to the Paladins," He said, which put a smile on all of our faces, "…First order of business, you have to learn how to 'too sweet'."

There were few facial expressions more obvious than ones related to complete and utter confusion, "...What is that?" Mister Rasputin asked, staring at the 'too sweet' sign in question.

Before our new teacher could be educated on the finer points of the Paladins' social nuances, Hisako jumped in to be a wet blanket, "No, you don't. Don't listen to them, Peter. It's just a dumb handshake thing they made up."

"Hey, we didn't make it up," I made sure to specify. It was very important that she got this right, "You're giving us too much credit. We stole it and re-appropriated it," I pointed over to Mister Rasputin who was trying to mimic Eddie's own hand gesture, "Hah! See? He's doing it!"

Small victories, people. Take them where you can get them. Life isn't much for handing us extensive winning streaks, so hoard every single one you can get.

XxX

God, I missed hanging out with my team. We didn't even have to train or anything, but sometimes it was good to try and get some important work done when we were together. And there was something very important that we needed to see to before the next term got well underway.

Laura needed an f'ing codename. The rest of us had one, even if we didn't want it (I still hated being called Solaris). It was a requirement to have another title to go by in the field... which made sense back when mutants were a secret. It didn't make as much sense now. Tradition, perhaps?

Either way, we were all gathered at an arcade to just hang out for a while. The lot of us were gathered in a balcony dining area outside. Inside was full of annoying noises for Laura, which she didn't need when Eddie and I were doing well enough at annoying her on our own.

"So come on. What do you think?" I insisted, crumpling up straw wrappers to throw at her one-by-one. I was just trying to get some kind of reaction out of her, "You've got to give us some input here. It's about you."

Laura sat impassively. Her arms were crossed and she hardly blinked as harmless little paper balls bounced off of her head. To be fair, all she had to do was wait out five of them, "I don't care about any of this. I don't want to come up with something new to call myself. I don't want any of you to do it either."

Once I was out of ammunition, she kicked me in the shin under the table – hard. The girl knew how to kick. I knew this already, but she was wearing boots too. I dropped my head onto the table to grab my leg and let out a silent yell. Ruth rubbed my back to soothe my pain like the sweetheart she was. I'm pretty sure Hisako tried to high-five Laura.

Eddie was all business though. Focused on the matter at hand, he rejected Laura's rejection, "You _need_ a codename, and you're not even trying. So that leaves it to us to help you out and come up with one," Laura just gave Eddie the blankest deadpan stare she could muster, which was pretty impressive, "I'm not kidding. Why doesn't she believe us?"

Hisako, big stick in the mud that she was, didn't miss a beat in responding, "Because it's you two saying it, and all of the codenames you've come up with so far are stupid."

I rested with my cheek in my hand, bored with being shot down. Every name we tried had been denied, "If you have such a problem with our ideas for names, which in my unbiased opinion are amazing, by the way-," I felt the need to add, "-You could always help us brainstorm. We are a team."

Despite my offer, there was no response from the peanut gallery. Hisako and Laura both either couldn't or wouldn't bother humoring us with helping us name our most recent addition to the Paladins. It wasn't any skin off of Eddie's nose or mine. It just meant that when we inevitably came up with a surefire, can't miss name for Laura, there would be no objections allowed from anyone. After all, I didn't get to pick my codename. Why should she?

Eddie huffed at the lack of help from our two female teammates, "Fine. Guess we're doing this the cheap way," He said before turning to Ruth, "Blindfold, what do we end up calling her? You've got to know."

Ruth was basically a cheat sheet to the future. The problem with that was, changing one thing changed a bunch of other things. If she told you anything, something she may have called out a year down the line might never happen, or might get moved up a few months. Working with her, you had to pick and choose, because stopping one bad thing might open up the door to something worse that you couldn't stop.

Ruth bid Eddie an apologetic smile, "Yes. No. Sorry. Bellamy says she should not tell him everything," She said, passing the buck of blame to me. Fair enough. I _had_ told her to do that, "He says she should use her judgment and only tell him what's important."

Eddie could not wrap his head around this line of reasoning. Being who he was, of course, that meant he then gave out about his displeasure over this, "What? Bel, why would you do that? Come to think of it, why haven't we hit the lottery yet?" He asked, "...Other than the fact that we can't legally buy tickets?"

I reached over and flicked Eddie in the forehead to get him to sit down properly, "Because Ruthie can't choose what she sees. She just gets visions," I explained. We were working on having her hone in on more particular things, but despite her improvements, the chaos of life oftentimes made this difficult, "Besides, who wants to know everything? That's boring."

Hisako wasn't always against me for the sake of being a contrarian. This was made clear when she actually backed me up, doubling up on my point to Eddie, "Didn't you have a problem with her talking about everything she found out when you first met her? You thought she was creepy until Bel showed up and dropped that mandate on her."

"Stop. Bringing up. Old stuff," Eddie said, "I already apologized for that."

Hisako raised an eyebrow in interest, "Oh really? I don't remember an apology ever coming out of your mouth."

Ruth nodded, demurely raising her hand, "Yes. Pardon, you did not apologize to her," She said, speaking of herself.

"Yeah, you definitely didn't," I piled on in agreement, "But then again, I'm of the mindset that you shouldn't have to apologize just for how you feel about stuff."

Red-faced, Eddie finally put an end to the team ganging up on him, good-natured as it was in spirit, "We-we-we are getting sidetracked here. We need to come up with a codename for Laura before sessions start up again, otherwise we're gonna catch crap. If she goes too long without one, they'll probably dock us points."

That dog wouldn't hunt, as far as I was concerned, "The fuck they are," I knew they absolutely would though. I wouldn't put it past Mister Summers or Miss Frost for an instant. I slapped my hands on the table and pointed across at Laura, "You're getting a name by the end of the first week of classes, goddamn it. Eddie, go through the list again and see if anything works for her."

Eddie pulled up his phone that we'd been recording codenames onto and began reading them off, "Alright, try these on for size. Talon, Wolverette, Scratchy, Shredder, Super Shredder-."

Hisako could only take so much before interrupting, "Those are terrible. You should both feel bad," She turned to Laura and gestured her head toward Eddie and I, "If I were you, and I got one of those names, I would stab one of them," Laura seriously seemed as though she were considering it.

One could not criticize a method of approach if better solutions weren't being presented. Otherwise, it was just bellyaching, and nothing productive came of that.

"Girls..." I said calmly and smoothly, "The last time I checked, my hearing worked. And English is the language that we're all speaking right now, so I can understand what you say," I gave a wide sweeping gesture to the table we were sitting around, "By all means, please, contribute."

Eddie, not wanting to be stabbed, defended himself with words, "This is how we did it for Bellamy. Hell, he didn't even get a choice, remember? We picked for him."

Hisako could admit that much, "Right. It was funny when it was him. Now that it's happening to her? Not so much."

No respect for me, ever. No matter what. I hate my friends sometimes.

"I can still go by X-23 during missions," Laura finally chimed in, "I do not see why I need a new designation. This one still identifies me, and distinguishes me individually."

She was being so stubborn about this. The truth was, she did need a name. The fact that half the names Eddie and I had been coming up had been jokes wasn't the point. We weren't trying to legitimately name her ourselves. We were just trying to jog a decent one out of her brain while shooting the breeze.

She could not go by that name. It just wasn't going to happen. There was so much wrong with it, especially given everything I knew.

I let out an exasperated sigh, "It's a letter and a number. We can't call you that. It makes it seem like you're not a person, Laura. Like you're a project," I said, focusing all of my attention directly on her, "Why do you want to go by your clone ID? That's the name shitty people called you when shitty things were happening to you. Come on! Fresh start, woman! You can be what you want to be, not what you were made to be!"

After hearing that, Laura did seem like she was honestly considering going by something other than X-23. That was great. Finally, we were making some progress around here!

Even Hisako, my harshest critic on the team, seemed impressed by my stirring words, "I've gotta admit, that was almost inspiring."

As backhanded as it was, it still counted as a compliment, and I took it as one, "It's part of my job description to at least try to motivate you jerks. I may be a half-assed leader, but hey, that just means half the time I actually get it right."

Eddie gave us all a nugget of wisdom, "Dude, in some countries, 50% is a passing grade."

Truer words had rarely been spoken. And they were also equally inspiring in their own way. You just had to look a little beyond the surface to find the wise message hidden within.

Speaking of things being hidden, with my back to the balcony we were seated on, I didn't notice a flying figure approach until it had come to a rest, arms wrapping around me from behind and stealing my hat. Yet, I couldn't feel mad for a moment as it was obvious to me who it was, "Bellamy! Did you miss me? Ooh, did you get bigger while you were gone?"

I laughed to myself at the energetic greeting from my girlfriend, "How you been, Pix?" I ask, turning my head to give her a big kiss on the cheek, "You should have told me when you were flying in! You know I've been here for a while already. I would have done some lame shit like wait for you at the airport with a sign."

Megan looked at me, stunned that I had come up with such an idea and that she hadn't told me so I could actually do it, "Oh my God! That would have been so romantic! I would have loved that!"

Well, we could just call that a missed opportunity, "You say that, until you get a look at my grumpy mug posted up for you outside of security," I remarked, "I don't think emotional reunions are my thing."

Megan waited for me to scoot back and give her some space to sit down on my lap. She still had my hat on, "Don't be that way. You've got a soft spot in there somewhere," She said, poking me directly in the chest, "...Not here though. You are _solid_."

What could I say? When you never slept and had lots of empty time to fill, working out was a great way to do it. It stood to reason that there were some benefits that came with it.

"Boo," Eddie openly jeered, "Quit showing off. You big, glowing dickhead."

Before I could unleash a scathing rebuttal, Megan spoke up, "Can you really do that?" She asked me audaciously, her unique eyes shining mischievously, "I might like to see it if you could."

"Do what?" It took me a moment to realize what she was alluding to – which was Eddie's aforementioned remark, taking it literally, "Oh! Uh... I... don't know. I've never even thought to try."

I tried it later that night. I can make my dick glow and shoot light blasts out of it. It's awesome. Don't ask what kind of use I would actually have for that aspect of my powers. Just know that it exists, that yes, some girls _do_ like it, and be jealous that you can't do it.

"So what brings you over here?" Hisako pleasantly asked Megan, "I really hope you didn't come all the way to Salem Center just to look for this guy."

Megan smiled brightly, "I was out with Hope and Jessie and we just came across you guys. I told them I was just going to fly up and say hey. So, hey!"

Going shopping with a group of other ladies sounded good to Hisako, "Our teams really need to hang out more. I need to expand my circle," She said, gesturing to Eddie and myself. To be fair, we weren't exactly good for girly things, "I love those two idiots, but spending so much time with them has to kill brain cells. I felt like a fog had lifted when I went home for the summer."

I'd been taking a sip of my drink the entire time Hisako had been talking and only stopped to respond, "All I heard out of that sentence was that you love me. I knew you did," I said smugly.

"See? Idiot."

Megan was completely enraptured by the idea of both her team and mine being tight, "We should do that! We _can_ do that! I'll talk to the others about it," She promised Hisako. As she did, she bounced excitedly on my lap. It was a fantastic experience for me, "I'm already thinking of stuff. I'm talking group activities," She finished determinedly.

Eddie slapped his hand down on the table. Uh-oh. I felt a tirade coming and braced myself, "Right. That sounds like a good, sensible plan. OR, Bel can stop being an asshole and throw me a bone. Get me a date with Hope or Jessica!"

And there it was. To be fair, it took him a lot longer to work that angle with me than I thought it would, "How am _I_ supposed to get _you_ a date with one of them? Man up and ask."

Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes, "You didn't."

That one hurt my ego, because he had a point. Then again, I didn't really have the opportunity before Megan asked me out of the blue, "To be fair, I operate on the assumption that everyone hates me until proven otherwise," I made it a point to give Megan a squeeze when I looked her way, "For the record, I would have totally asked you out first if I knew you liked me."

Megan hummed in wordless agreement, "Mmm. You kind of didn't figure it out until I hit you over the head with it, did you?" Another sharp jab to the ego, lack of intent aside, "I just wanted to stop in and say hi. I shouldn't leave the girls for too long."

"That's fine. I'll call you tonight," I said, allowing her to stand up, "Bye, Pix," Before she could depart, I remembered something and gave a quick tug around her waist, "Ah-ah. Hat."

With a big grin, Megan took my hat off of her head and put it back on mine, leaning down to give me a kiss when she did, "Bye, Bel," She whispered before flying off with her wings.

Eddie made sure to provide one last parting shout before she got too far away, "I was serious about that date by the way! Make it happen!" He looked at the rest of us and shook his head, "She's not gonna make it happen."

Laura had been quiet the entire time Megan had been there, which admittedly wasn't much different from how she usually was. Only after Megan left did she say anything again. Her arms crossed, she stared at me impassively, "Bellamy, I am upset with you again," She directed my way.

"I am too," Eddie said before I could get exasperated and ask Laura why, "Bellamy, you fucking clown. You have a girlfriend who has cute friends. Share the wealth."

Hisako scowled in Eddie's direction, and I slowly pushed away from the table, feeling tensions rise, "Share the wealth. Implying that girls are like booty or something," She said.

Eddie wasn't fazed by possibly upsetting the member of our team with impenetrable psionic armor, "Hmm. That's an interesting turn of phrase, given the topic at hand. Booty," He made the unfortunate mistake of lingering within Hisako's arm's reach. He got a cup of slowly melting ice poured on his head. The shit-eating grin never left his face.

I rolled my eyes and got up from the table, chewing on the ice from my own empty cup.

"Where are you going?" Eddie asked, whipping his wet hair around like a dog drying itself.

I waved the entire situation off, "I'm checking out of playing peacekeeper for the rest of the day. Instead, I'm gonna go downstairs and play some crappy arcade games," Ruth was quick to leave her seat to accompany me, "Come on, Ruthie. Let's go win some tickets for a lame prize."

It was the tail end of summer. The last dregs of the holiday. School was starting up in a matter of days. If at the time I had any delusions that it would be a more chill time than the year that came before it, I was out of my mind.

* * *

 **Back to school. We've got the first few conflicts and upcoming plot elements set and ready to go. Strap yourselves in and imagine how things can get totally screwed up at Xavier's and beyond this year.**

 **There's a lot in-store coming up, so kick back, relax, and allow me to spin you a yarn using characters that I don't have any rights to. I hope you all enjoyed. As quiet as things have been for the last two chapters, that's all going to change very soon.**

 **Kenchi out.**


	25. Time Is A Flat Circle

Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel. I don't know if I'm emotionally ready for another major Marvel film. Infinity War left me with some lingering feelings. Hopefully my palate is cleansed with Ant-Man and the Wasp. I've always liked Paul Rudd.

 **Chapter 25: Time Is A Flat Circle**

* * *

It's easy for me to see why people get so addicted to being in relationships. There's a lot to like. For example, the constant company provided by a significant other. It's hard to be lonely when someone has basically designated themselves to spend as much time with you as possible.

And then there's... well, there's what some would call the skinship portion of the whole thing. For a teenager navigating the choppy waters of puberty, experiencing sex on a regular basis for the first time is a shock to the system.

I'm not just talking about me either. Megan was very enthusiastic about hooking up as much as possible, which still wasn't as much as either of us liked. The only obstacle in our way to do it more often than we did was our respective roommates. But when one of us could get one of them out of the way for any reasonable period of time... oh boy.

I had managed to get Wolf to leave my room for a night and stay with Ruth, with the conditions that he got to take my Nintendo Switch with him. That was fine. It wasn't like I didn't have five other consoles in my room at any given time, and it wasn't like I was going to be playing many video games when I had a girl to play with instead.

"You sure your codename isn't 'Rabbit' instead of Pixie? Jesus, girl," I joked, but this was a very welcome thing, "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm just saying," As long as I could afford the condoms needed to prevent any accidental pregnancies, we could do it whenever she wanted. The only reason I hadn't asked more often beforehand was because I didn't want to come off as a sex-obsessed jerk.

Megan pinched my goddamn nipple of all things. It fucking hurt, and I didn't expect it, but I didn't give her the benefit of letting her know, "Oh, shut up. I'm serious, Bel! I missed you during the break," She said, before admitting something more reservedly, "...And I was jealous."

Oh no. We had already had our little talk about that. There was no need to dwell on old stuff. Especially less than pleasant old stuff, "You don't need to say anything else. We already talked about it."

Fortunately, for the sake of us both being unclothed and in close proximity, it didn't devolve into a rehashing of the Laura thing, "No, I'm jealous of your team, actually," Megan said, "It feels like they know more about you than I do. I mean, I get that it's easier to be close to somebody when you deal with what you guys have had to. But it just... I don't know. This sounds dumb."

"No-no, I get it," It made perfect sense to me. Megan and I didn't really start getting close until bad things happened that we'd both had to handle, "Pix, for some reason, people find it easier to bond in misery."

She didn't like that idea. It was understandable. What kind of psycho would be excited about dealing with problems just for something like that, "So we have to suffer together to get super-close? That's awful. That can't be the way normal relationships work."

Since when were any of us normal? I didn't say that though, "I don't know, we seem close enough already, at least physically," I tried to joke for a moment, "If bad shit happening speeds up the process, I'd rather not. I don't exactly like you watching me get my ass kicked," I didn't want her to see me in action at all. She'd probably notice the thing I was going to therapy for, and I doubted that girls found a complete lack of empathy sexy, "And I _definitely_ don't want anything bad happening to you."

"Bad things happen to you a lot," She observed astutely.

That was the understatement of the school year, and we had just started it, "I would rather they didn't, believe me," I tried to reason back, "But I knew what I was getting into when I decided to come here, so complaining too much would be a jabroni move."

Megan nodded a look on her face showing that she was listening to me seriously. It was adorable, "Right. I'll take your word for it, because I don't know what 'jabroni' means."

I didn't know how to respond to that, "It means-," I suddenly felt too tired to go into any kind of detail, "You know what? Fuck it. I'm exhausted. All you need to know it that it's not good," I said with a laugh.

Megan took the opportunity to try and tease me, "I thought you didn't get tired."

I rolled my eyes, "I don't get physically tired. I still get mentally worn down."

She got smug and held my cheeks to shake my head around, "So, I wore you out, huh?"

"You want to see how worn out I am?"

It was a good thing that the walls between dorm rooms were fairly thick. I'd have hated to be the guy that ruined his neighbors' evening enjoying himself too much.

XxX

Because I almost never sleep, it's really convenient for me to go and do things I don't want to do. I always have time for everything, you see. For instance, medical things, like minimally invasive procedures. I don't have to miss class, or interaction times with my friends. I can just set the appointment for some weird time, like two in the morning on a Tuesday.

Did that suck for Dr. McCoy? Probably. But when he told me about what he wanted to do, he gave me the option to pick a time.

Two hours of surgery later, and I had a new accessory – an implant in the back of my right hand, the size of a raisin. At least, that's what I was told. It was covered in so many bandages, I couldn't see it. It was meant to help me monitor my power level. To be fair, having something I could check myself was a lot easier than randomly asking whoever was around what color my eyes were.

Fresh off of waking up from my medically-induced nap, I couldn't stop staring at my right hand. It felt like there was a rock or something in it, "I trust you Dr. McCoy. I mean, you know the science that goes into my b.s. powers better than I do, but isn't this a little much?" I asked, rubbing the soft cast around my hand.

Dr. McCoy moved my hand away to keep me from picking at his work, "Mister Marcher, I know you're aware of the danger of your power's limitations," He gently admonished, "You do an admirable job of keeping to your limitations, but you're growing more powerful."

Yes, because I was the shit, "That's good," I hoped I wasn't puffing my chest out too hard.

"But it's occurring quickly," Dr. McCoy pointed out to try and bring me back down to earth, "Tell me, do you remember the last time you used a large amount of your reserves?" I frowned and nodded my head. It was during the summer, "Did you feel the change, or did you find out later?" I looked away, and he correctly assumed it was the second answer, "Yes, you have access to much more energy. Your body's capacity to store it is significantly higher than it was when you first came to us, but your body processes only require the same amounts to operate that they ever have."

"So, I can't trust how much I have just off of feeling anymore..." The last fight of any significant value I'd had, I drained myself all the way down to yellow without even feeling it. And I _still_ didn't sleep that night, "...That sucks."

"Now, now. You'll be fine," The brilliant, blue-furred man reassured me with pats on the back, "Alright, Mister Marcher. I think we're just about finished here. Don't remove that cast until the implant settles. Now, be on your way, my boy! You have class to get to later this morning," He reminded me with a toothy smile.

I drew back in distaste, "I still have to go to class? I just had surgery," I lifted up my cast-covered hand, "How am I supposed to write? I can barely feel this arm."

Dr. McCoy looked like he was going to write me a note just long enough to make me believe I was going to get out of classes, before he changed his tone entirely, "You're left handed," He deadpanned, killing my excuse, "No truancy will be sanctioned on my watch, young man," He said, escorting me out of his back office.

I grinned back at him and took off when he swung a mighty paw at me, playing around. He remained in the room, finishing some things up while I left through his lab.

...His lab. Where the Cuckoos told me that dead kid Quentin Quire was. When was I going to get another chance to look around? I took my shot.

Staying quiet and keeping an eye out, I skulked around, keeping an eye out for a dead body or something. I was pretty sure that it would be something obvious when I saw it. And yet, there wasn't a lot of clutter. What I saw around me was what was there. I didn't dare touch anything, seeing as how I had no idea what most of it was or how it worked.

Eventually, my eye strayed to a large container of glowing goo. If anything in the lab screamed mad scientist, this was it. I put my hand on the glass. Whatever was in there felt... alive. What kind of weirdness was this?

" _The hell are you looking at, chump?"_

I jumped back in shock, "Did you just-?" I said to myself before realizing I could probably be heard by Dr. McCoy if I spoke. This guy was a telepath, so I probably didn't have to talk to speak with him, 'Is this you? Quentin Quire?'

 _"Well, if it isn't the false prince, come to see the true ruler of Xavier's in his prison."_

I didn't even bother acknowledging that, 'Can you, like, stop doing shit in my head, please?' As far as I knew, I hadn't done anything to piss off this guy or anyone he actually liked, if he even did like anyone at the school.

 _"Nope,"_ Quire thought to me, quite nastily, _"You've got everybody fooled into thinking you're some kind of badass. The other losers that run around this place... the teachers... the damn X-Men... even yourself."_

'What are you talking about?'

 _"You're a house cat that acts like he's a lion. But every time you run up against a real one, they turn you into the pussy you are,"_ Anger rolled through me, and I could feel that Quire was loving every moment of it, _"And the wannabe X-Men filling this dump lap it all up! It's incredible! It's almost impressive, actually."_

I was in disbelief that I was getting lip from some glowing ooze on a table. What had been a burning rage at having my practical performance issues thrown in my face turned into a smoldering one, "...And what have you done? You started a riot and got turned to psychic sludge by the fucking Cuckoos. That's your claim to fame – some punk that got shut down the first time he tried to tangle with the big boys."

That one had gotten to him. I could feel it, _"You don't know anything about it."_

"At least I lived to learn from my mistakes," I taunted him, patting his container, "I bet sitting in that fucking jar all day every day, all you think about is what you'd have done different, or what you'd do if you weren't goo."

 _"You think you're better than me? You're a sideshow! At best, you're like a star athlete in some podunk town. The minute you tear your ACL, they'll forget about you. The second there's any doubt; the second you fuck up, and I mean REALLY fuck up, just one time... they'll drop you. All of them. Because paper heroics is all you're good for, and once that's torn through, you're good for nothing."_

If he was going to try and cut at me with words, he picked the wrong one, 'You mean like you? You could project to anyone in this school, but you went with me. That's how much I _don't_ matter,' I thought with a silent scoff, 'You're strong from what I've heard. You could probably do some real damage to the X-Men to get your revenge or something, but there's just one problem. Your ass can't move! What's the point of being king if the only part of your kingdom you can experience is the dungeon?' I said, mocking him with his own metaphor.

Quire laughed the way you hear someone do it when they're angry and plan on getting even, _"I was just screwing with you before because I was bored. But now? I'm gonna watch you crash and burn, and I'll enjoy every second of it,"_ He thought to me maliciously, _"Kid Omega's got his eyes on you."_

'You don't have eyes,' I told him, rolling mine, 'Stay out of my head, or I'll pour you down the sink, _Quentin_.'

He laughed at the threat/insult, _"The last thing you, or any of the rest of these sheep want is for you to let me out of here,"_ He thought back to me, quite forebodingly.

Having gotten what I'd come for, I turned to leave before Dr. McCoy found me lingering in his lab, 'Whatever. I just wanted to know that I wasn't losing it. It's just you messing with my head.'

" _You think_ I'm _messing with your head? You aren't worth the effort, idiot. It's like rainbow stew up there,"_ Quire thought to me, parting with one last sarcastic shot, _"Oh, and happy birthday, Marcher."_

I ignored him. I had early morning things to do before classes started for the day.

XxX

The growing pains of the new semester included managing to coordinate with your friends. All of the Paladins had the same time set for lunch, except for Hisako, with her advanced class schedule. We basically didn't see her during school unless we were in a part of it we weren't supposed to be in at that particular part of the day. Definitely not that day at least.

The same went for other groups, like the Hellions. Unlike us, they were split down the middle, with half having different eating times. Julian, Cessily, and Santo were saddled with our lunchtime, and so they gravitated toward us.

This confused Eddie, who had been out of the loop as to why things had changed so much from the end of the last semester, "Why are the Hellions sitting with us?"

As far as he knew, we were on truce terms with each other because of the party we'd all gone 50-50 on. But that did not necessarily make for the kind of closeness that came with sitting together at lunch. This was a big deal.

Cessily was the Hellion that chose to answer him, "Because Julian thinks sitting at a half-empty table is sad."

"Shut up, Cess," Julian grumbled with no heat to it.

This did little to solve Eddie's current conundrum over Paladin-Hellion relations, "Okay, but why us? Are we friends now? Did I miss something?"

"Well, we did have that life-changing field trip over the summer that you weren't there for," I reminded him, taking a fork to some mashed potatoes, "I got shot, and me and Laura snuck across the border into Tijuana."

Santo laughed victoriously, looking back on the really intense day he was involved in, "Yeah, we kicked supervillain ass! You should have been there, Wing. It was the kind of shit they make movies or miniseries about."

Eddie clicked his tongue in annoyance, "Man, I miss everything cool. I need some hero cred. Sol, Armor, and Laura all have it. Where's mine?"

At that moment, I noticed Laura not too far away in line, eyes curiously scanning the options for lunch, "Speak of the devil..." I muttered before speaking up, "Hey, Laura! Grab some food and get over here! You need to tell Eddie why you and me should be in jail for grand theft auto!"

It was very intriguing to watch a human being spook like a deer. Seriously, Laura saw me, her eyes went wide, and she proceeded to leave as quickly as she could without breaking into a jog. I'd had the feeling she'd been avoiding me since classes had started, because out of all of my team, I had not seen her. And team practices hadn't started yet to force her to be around us. Her dipping out on us in the cafeteria just sealed it, and it pissed me off, as many things seemed to.

An unwelcome, weaselly voice in my head made itself known again. A shame. I had been fine without it, _"Oho! Clone chick's got the right idea. Get away from your toxic ass as fast as possible."_

"Where's she going?" Eddie asked, "We still need to come up with her codename!"

I didn't know, but I was going to go find out. At least, I was. Cessily got ahold of me before I could get up and stomp off after her, inadvertently hitting the table and forcing Eddie to spill some of his soda on his book, "Hey, no-no-no, Bel," She said, making sure I stayed seated while she went off to find Laura, "I think I know what this is all about. You stay here. I'll go and get her!"

With that, the metal girl did just that, taking off in the direction Laura went. That left me sitting at the lunch table, impotent. Irritatingly impotent. Everyone could see I was put out. Julian was barely biting his tongue to keep from taking a shot at me.

"Goddamn it," I said, not even trying to let the whole thing slide, "Is it just me? Am I really that bad at this whole connecting as a team leader thing?"

Julian nodded in agreement with my self-deprecating statement, "You do suck. But I wouldn't blame any of _that_ on you, Marcher," He said, "The clone-, err, Kinney is just one weird chick. Nothing you can do about it."

I rolled my eyes. Even though his whole 'big man on campus' thing had been toned down a lot, he was still that guy, "We're all weird. It's not like I need her to change. I don't even want her to, really. Maybe I should pick Cess' brain?"

Santo threw a handful of fries in his mouth from a bucket full of them, "Cess doesn't have any better idea than you do," He said between bites, "She's just giving Laura advice. You know, how to act in certain situations and stuff. I say she'd be better at that than anyone on your team."

Cessily taking an interest in being Laura's friend was good. The more of those she had outside of my crew, the better. But to imply that anyone was better than me at anything stabbed at my pride.

I looked around at my immediate company. Hisako wasn't there. Eddie was busy trying to dry the pages of the textbook we'd just gotten days ago. I had nothing, "I would love to dispute you, but considering the _immaculate_ and unique roster the Paladins has on-hand, I can't argue," I turned and nudged the telepath next to me, "No offense, Ruthie. I love you to death."

Wasn't that the God's honest truth? I didn't have siblings. Ruth was my school sister, if ever I were to have one. She knew this and preened from her seat.

"Dude, you're trying too hard," Eddie said, shaking the moisture out of his wet book. He'd probably bitch about that to Cessily later, "Hear me out. Girls are kind of like cats. If they come and talk to you, it's great. But if you try to talk to them, it doesn't always go so well."

"This coming from the guy that doesn't have a cat, or a girlfriend," Julian chimed in.

Eddie glared across the table at Julian, but did nothing to disprove his statement, "Granted, Hellion here has a point, as my advice is based off of mostly secondhand knowledge. But come on! Have I ever led you wrong before?"

I went to grab some examples to use against him when I realized that there weren't any, "...Actually, no. Now that you mention it, you usually give me pretty solid advice on things like this. Better than Saberwolf, anyway."

Julian let out a snort of laughter, "You ask your pet robot for advice?"

I took offense for my absent A.I., "Hey, he's really smart! Just... not with people stuff," Also, he wasn't my pet.

Eddie swatted aimlessly in Julian's direction to get him to shut up, but he kept his eyes and attention on me. He was serious, "Sol, as your wingman, I'm saying to let the chips fall as they may with Laura. If she wants to go to you, she will. If she goes to Mercury and leaves us out of it, nobody should complain. You don't have to try and fix _everything_. As long as we're a well-oiled machine when competitions start, we're good."

Okay, my earlier thoughts were accurate. Sometimes, Eddie did say smart stuff sprinkled into his usual crap, "You're right. I know you're right," I sighed, "I just don't get her, dude. I thought I'd figured out how she ticks by now."

We spent a good chunk of the summer together. We'd had at least one talk that could have been considered a heart-to-heart, and it still felt like trying to dig through bedrock.

Ruth took that as her cue to poke me in the head with her index finger, and it wasn't just a friendly gesture. In the span of five seconds, countless thoughts were shoved into my head. Thoughts that weren't mine. Thoughts that weren't even Ruth's.

They were Laura's, and they were awful.

It was... disturbingly intimate. I knew what it felt like every time she popped her claws. I knew what different people's blood smelled like to her. I knew what she felt now about some of the kills she had made. I knew the sensation she felt when the trigger scent overwhelmed her. She remembered all of the sights, sounds, and smells of more than a few of the episodes... and terrible sorrow over one. A woman that looked a lot like her.

It was too much. I knew more than I wanted to. I nearly collapsed trying to jerk away, holding myself up with my hands on the table.

"Whoa. Blindfold, did you just make Marcher cry?"

Santo's voice prompted me to reach up and touch my eyes, "Hah... what the..." I felt tears. Everything that had just been unloaded into my mind felt like a punch to the gut that I couldn't catch my breath from. Ruth reached out and rubbed my back while I fought the urge to throw up. Probably not a good thing to do in the cafeteria, "W-Why did you show me that?"

Ruth didn't seem pleased with how it seemed to affect me, "Because, to walk a mile in her shoes, yes? Yes, she saw everything herself when she first met Laura," She said with a frown, "...Sorry. Was she wrong to do that?"

"You probably shouldn't have," I said, heaving a deep sigh as I tried to get my head on straight again, "That felt like her whole life summed up into one brain dump. Couldn't that much have killed me?"

Ruth seemed hurt that I would think she'd be reckless with my noodle, "…No. She would not let anything bad happen to Bellamy's mind. And pardon, you are wrong. Those are just the things Laura still dreams about."

I just saw the things that stick with her to such a degree that she thinks about them constantly. That was to say nothing for the everyday little horrors that I only got a taste of, or the things I didn't see at all.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to talk much after dealing with that shit either. I wished Quire didn't. Being in my head without permission at the time Ruth mindtapped me meant he got everything I got. Served him right, _"What is that thing doing in a school!? In any school!? You have a fucking monster on your team, Marcher!"_

Ruth turned my way. Quire wasn't subtle in the slightest. She heard him. I grabbed her hand and ran my thumb across the back of it to let her know it was alright, 'She is what they made her. The people who did that to her are monsters,' I thought back heatedly.

"Dude, can you stop crying already?" Julian asked, looking at me uncomfortably, "It's getting kind of awkward sitting with you. Your eyes are leaking like you just heard Pixie broke up with you."

I was in the process of regaining my composure, in a manly way, mind you, "Give me a minute, would you? I just got a brainful of the greatest hits of raising a child assassin. You're just lucky I don't make noise when I cry."

Damn it, I was already seeing a shrink. I didn't need more loose shit rattling around upstairs. It was already a mess up there.

XxX

I had U.S. history that semester with Dani Moonstar, who was the New Mutants advisor. Speaking of them, three of her students were all in that class – Sofia, Noriko, and Laurie. Lucky for me, I had Eddie with me. Unlucky for me, he spent a lot of time hitting on them.

"Eddie, stop," I said after listening to three straight minutes of him trying to low-key hit on them before class, "Are you trying to die?"

I was still grumpy from lunch. But I was always kind of prickly, so no one else would have noticed anything wrong. Eddie didn't, "They wouldn't do that to me. It's not like I'm being pushy. I'm just saying that if any of them are interested, they have my number."

"I don't mean them," I pointed out. All of those girls were either into somebody, or vice-versa. If I knew this, he for certain did as well.

Eddie waved off my minor concerns, "Well, they're not dating anyone last time I checked. You would never let anyone beat my ass for hitting on single girls."

"Well, I wouldn't count on that," I lifted my cast-covered hand and wiggled my fingers, "For the next few days, I'm handicapped, buddy."

Eddie tapped it, feeling that it wasn't a hard cast. It was just there to cover something and keep me from picking at it, "Can you even train until that thing comes off?" He asked. I shook my head, "That sucks. Don't you heal really fast?"

"When I sleep, which I _never_ do," I specified, "And this isn't a bad enough injury to force me to."

"Wow, you are in a mood today," Noriko pointed out, "Is it because of that thing at lunch? I heard you cried."

I smirked at her in return. If she wanted to mess with me, she had to try better than that, "Yes, I cried. No, I'm not saying why. It's personal, and not my personal."

I'd never had class with Noriko, but she followed Hisako's school of thought in dealing with me – challenge me at every turn. However, where verbally jousting with Hisako was more related to finesse and timing, Noriko was as subtle as a sledgehammer. Plus, it was way easier to make her lose her cool. She did not want to play that game with me all school year long. I'd drive her insane.

Eddie, on the other hand, could get to me without meaning to, "No, it's not that. He was pissy before that," He said. My teeth clicked in annoyance, "He's kinda been an asshole all day. A bigger one than usual, I mean."

Had the bar for me being a jerk been lowered that much? I was offended, "I haven't been an asshole, in a while, actually. I haven't messed with anyone or done anything mean in forever," Eddie went to open his mouth, a point from me stopped him, "Hisako doesn't count. Screwing with each other is our thing."

Sofia's brow furrowed in thought, "Okay, so Bellamy is bitter about something else," Nope. Not a chance, sweetheart. We were friends, but she didn't know me well enough to reason out my attitude.

Nori leaned back and grinned like a cat that ate the canary, "I can't imagine why, after what he got up to last night."

My head turned her way so fast, my neck popped, "Why do you know what I get up to ever? I don't spread my details around."

She was way too smug about knowing any of my inner workings, "Pixie likes to talk. She really to talk about you," She looked me over and shook her head, "What are you doing for that girl?"

"All good things, apparently," Sofia mumbled, covering a mischievous smile behind her hand.

I gave her a look a betrayal. And here we had always been so civil, "Now you're getting in on it too?" I complained, before pointing at Laurie, who had been refreshingly passive in the conversation, "You know what? I changed my mind. Wallflower is my favorite New Mutant now. She never talks to me, but at least she never fucks with me either."

Eddie shrugged, coming to the defense of the ladies, "It's not a secret, dude. You and Pixie disappear all the time whenever you think you've got Hope or Saberwolf out of the way," He was way too smug, "You're not slick."

I mulled things over for a moment. What was I getting embarrassed about? All of this just meant that I was the man, "So what? Damn. You guys jealous?"

" _I_ am!" Eddie admitted unashamedly.

Noriko pulled out her phone and started digging into social media, "Okay, let's see what makes Bellamy tick," Good luck with that. I didn't put anything important on any of those things. I held my breath when her face shifted. She had clearly found something, "...It's your birthday today."

Crap. Well, there went that little nugget of information, "Yep," I admitted begrudgingly.

The girls all looked Eddie's way, thinking he had either been hoarding the information or had forgotten my birthday entirely. He pleaded his innocence, "Don't look at me. I didn't know. This is the first I'm hearing about it."

"That was the idea," I chimed in, defending my good friend, "I didn't tell anybody."

Sofia's face lit up, clearly finding plenty of reason to brighten up, "Well, happy birthday, Bellamy."

I wanted to roll my eyes, but someone was being legitimately nice to me. I wasn't so awful that I'd just throw something like that on the ground, "Thank you, Sof. As my present, don't say it too loud, and forget you ever found out about it."

Noriko continued going through her phone, trying to figure out how she could have missed this, "I really should have gotten this. Wait. Did you turn off all notifications for your birthday on Facebook? Who does that?"

"Someone that doesn't care about their birthday," I answered, really wishing that the bell would ring so Miss Moonstar would shut us all up, "Guys, let it go. I really don't care. It's just a day."

Eddie, as was his nature, tried to get me pumped up, "Fuck that. We should be throwing some kind of party, which could also double as a welcome back to campus for everybody. We'd be so cool after that!" Unfortunately for him, this time it failed. The stern look I gave him shut him down quickly, "...We could have at least gotten you a gift or something."

Sofia nodded in agreement, "I would have wanted to celebrate. Or at least properly wish you well. You have been a good friend to us. I think many people would feel the same. You don't still believe people dislike you, do you?"

The voice in my head that had been plaguing me for some time came roaring back, _"Well, well. Look at you, mister popular. All those losers. They're just as dumb as you are if they think_ you're _worth stressing over."_

Noriko took a different route in trying to break me down, simultaneously stealing my attention back, "Aww, are you afraid nobody would come if you threw a birthday party?" She asked in a baby voice, reaching out to pinch my cheek.

Eddie rolled his eyes at her attempt to tease me, "Surge, I don't think any of us ever have to worry about that again after the last one, which I remind you, was the brainchild of our incandescent commander."

Despite the girl pulling on my face, I couldn't help but grin, "Wingman, you're a lyrical gangster," I said, before my scowl returned and I swatted Nori's hand away, "Girl, look at me. I try not to let any of this kind of bullshit influence any aspect of my life here. It's like my motto says, 'If it doesn't matter to me, who cares?'"

"I thought your motto was, 'I'm a grumpy, sarcastic fuck.'" Nori chirped. I raised my eyebrow at her as if to ask if that was the best she had. She must have realized that it was terrible from the lack of eye contact that followed. Hisako she was not with the banter, "A-Anyway, just because you're too much of a chameleon to be cliquey doesn't mean you've got enemies. You've had plenty of beef with students before. You've had beef with _teachers_ before."

"Thankfully, we all got over it," I said, "Nothing like bad guys trying to kill you on a regular basis to put things into perspective."

Eddie still wanted his answers, "That doesn't explain the birthday thing," Why did he have to focus on this, of all things?

"Because I hate the idea of celebrating my goddamn birthday," I blurted out before putting a high, sarcastic pitch to my voice, "Oh, my mom squirted me out on this day 17 years ago, and I spent the last twelve months not getting murdered. _Ooh_ , what an accomplishment."

Noriko chuckled to herself, "Around here, I think it actually is. We should all have a party every day nothing goes wrong," Eddie raised his hand for a concurring 'too sweet' and got it from the blue-haired Asian girl.

"Your birthday," Laurie spoke up for the first time since any of us had sat down. The shy girl powered through having my unfamiliar eyes on her and continued, "...You said 'your' birthday, and not birthdays in general."

Damn that perceptive, quiet chick. I would have to second-guess that thought to switch who my favorite New Mutant was if she kept analyzing my words like that. It even got Eddie to realize it himself, "Hey, yeah. You got me something for my birthday. Blindfold too."

"Because I'm glad you guys are around and I want to make sure you know it," Everyone just stared at me as if the same thing went for all of them, "Oh whatever. I'm the leader. I'm supposed to look after my friends," I said, after realizing I'd trapped myself.

Noriko reached out and put one of her gauntlet-covered hands on my arm, "...Who hurt you, Bellamy Marcher? Did you get some trauma from a party game gone wrong when you were little?"

Eddie shivered in his seat in reminiscence, "Seriously. Games of 'pin the tail on the donkey', or hitting the pinata can go very bad very fast when you're dealing with little kids," The awkward silence that fell prompted him say more, "...I've got a younger brother and sister."

All of the speculation got to me, which wasn't hard to do. I didn't have any major tragedies or traumas in my childhood. I just thought celebrating my birthday was a waste of time, money, and effort, "Nobody. Seriously, thank you guys, but just wait to give me some gifts and throw me a party until I do some real shit. My ego will demand it then."

"Like last semester?" Sofia commented, sounding wholly unconvinced, "What was the reason for that party?"

I raised an eyebrow and touched on an earlier point her teammate made, "I think surviving until summer break in this place was enough of an accomplishment for everybody who did."

Sofia huffed, smoothing her brown hair out of her face as she regarded all of us, "Really, there is no need to exaggerate the danger at Xavier's. No, it isn't the safest school, but-."

Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sound of an explosion in the direction of the front gate. All of the trained kids jumped to their feet while the others flinched and ducked. In a matter of seconds an alarm went off and red lights started to flash in the hall.

Miss Moonstar moved to the door and checked the hallway before motioning for us to head out, "Alright, we've all done the drills. Listen to the faculty on the floor and head to the basement," She tried to keep a calm demeanor, but she could only play it so cool when an emergency was happening during school hours.

There was a lot of tension and mumbling while everyone moved through the halls. No one was running. The stairs down to the lower level weren't that far. It just took credentials that most students didn't have to open the doors or the main elevator to get down there. There were senior staff guiding us along, keeping watch at certain points along everyone's route.

"Crap. That's right," Noriko cursed when she realized why all of this seemed less fortified than it should have been, "We're still working out updated lockdown procedures. The old ones involved the Danger Room. You know, the one that doesn't work anymore."

Eddie remained optimistic, "The lower levels should be safe enough. They've got to go through the X-Men to get there anyway, if hurting students is what they're after."

I looked around and saw we were now moving alongside students from what would equal middle school classes, "We should probably stop talking about that with the younger kids around," We didn't need anyone getting more scared than they already were.

Contrary to popular belief, the faculty at Xavier's had their shit together better than most of us gave them credit for. Better than any human counterparts would have if given the same circumstances. The problem was, they fought professional killers who usually had powers that were just as formidable as theirs. And having a bunch of squishy, uninitiated kids around to protect made it hard to fight.

They did the best they could, but facts were facts. And the fact was that all any bad guy had to do to get the upper hand on them was go after any one of us. That was why they arranged student training squads on the high school level, so the ones of us with the acumen to fight could at least make ourselves less of the victims. The better ones of us were in the running to _be_ X-Men and take part in defending the others.

"Come on," Mister Drake was in his ice form, but like the rest of the teachers, he hadn't gotten the chance to change out of his professional clothes into his X-Men uniform, "Watch your step on the stairs, guys. By the time you all get to the bottom of that thing, this'll probably be over," He assured some of the more frightened kids.

Eddie hustled behind me, as a herd of students headed to relative safety, "Jeez. These guys are getting bold now; trying to get at us in broad daylight, through the front."

Sofia had a nifty little talent where she could isolate sounds using the wind, and used that to sort through everyone's nervous chatter, "Other people are talking about a fire in the woods from someone destroying the defenses there."

I tried to keep a reasonable mind. The building hadn't been hit yet. I hadn't heard about anyone being hurt. Hopefully things would stay that way. Maybe this was just some loon who wanted to send a message to mutants by scaring us? It was better than the alternative of actually being attacked.

After the Danger Room, the most secure place in the school was the room with Cerebra. But you weren't going to stuff a few hundred kids in there with equipment like that around. The third most secure place was the hangar. There was plenty of room there, enough to fit vehicles, aircraft, and other large things. Plus, it was built into the side of the mountain the original mansion rested on.

"Alright, time for Paladins roll call," I started tapping out a group text for the entire team, and decided to multitask at the time, 'Ruthie, if you can read me, let me know you're good.'

" _She is fine, Bellamy, yes. She is downstairs. The hangar is a safe place, pardon. That is what the teachers believe."_

That was good. And as I sent out my text, I got responses from Eddie who was right next to me, and even Laura, who I thought was avoiding me. She was tucked away in the basement level just like Ruth. No answer from Hisako, though. I hadn't seen her all day.

Instead of a message in the group chat, I got a direct message from her phone. All it said was, 'Call me'. I didn't like that. Nothing good came from someone telling you to call them when they could have just texted you about whatever the fuck they needed instead, especially at a time like this.

With great hesitation, I gave her a call. The voice I heard on the other end was not my Armor, _"Right on time, mister leader,"_ A flash of pure rage ran through me, _"Ah-ah-ah. Not too loud now. Think about what you know right now."_

There had been an attack. More than one from the sound of things. Enough that the response had to be spread out to make sure there wasn't something coming from multiple sides.

" _All I want is for you to come and get your friend. If I see any sign of X-Men, I'll have to do something neither of us wants me to,"_ With that, whoever was on Hisako's phone hung up.

There was no time to waste. I bit my tongue to choke down part of my anger. The taste of blood settled me a tad. I pulled Eddie in close, "We've got to get out of here. Now," I doubted the kidnapper was going to wait until lockdown was cleared.

Eddie looked at me like I'd grown a second head, "We've got to get out of here? What are you talking about?"

I couldn't tear my eyes off of my phone. I could feel the plastic strain under the pressure of my grip, "Remember when you said you wished you could get some hero cred? This is your chance," I looked up and met Eddie's confused eyes, "We've got to go get Hisako."

"What do you mean, we-?" He started to exclaim before I gestured for him to quiet down, "What do you mean, we've to go get Hisako? Where the hell is she?" He hissed at me in a whisper.

I checked my phone for the friend tracker app I'd signed us all up for. The three dots representing Eddie, Ruth, and Laura were where they needed to be. Hisako's was a few miles away, "...Off-campus."

Eddie wasn't a genius, but when the pieces to a picture were in front of him, he could put the image together just fine.

"Dude..." He whined, the reality of the danger his best friend was in hit him, "Well, why is it up to us? We should tell a teacher or something, and God, that might have been the most bitch-ass thing that ever came out of my mouth," He finished, eyes widening in realization of that point.

"If any X-Men show, she's screwed. The guy said us," I told him, swallowing down my anger. That could wait until we saw the bastard that took Hisako, "Buzz the New Mutants, but don't tell 'em why we're leaving. I'll find an opening."

Good wingman that he was, Eddie did as I asked, and told the best possible person who wouldn't make a fuss over it – Laurie, "We've got to go check on Armor. Cover for us," She was too stunned and too shy to stop him before I'd come up with an exit strategy and pulled him away.

Eddie and I slipped out of the mass of humanity moving toward cover and into an open classroom. Opening a window, he floated out first and grabbed me, letting me shut the window behind us to cover our tracks. From there, he took off, following my direction to find Hisako.

It took us some time to get there while I was being carried. Eddie had to say something to try and calm his nerves, "What if this is a trap?"

"This is almost definitely a trap," I deadpanned, "It doesn't matter. If we don't go, Hisako dies anyway. What's upping the student body count two more if we die too?"

I could hear the frown on his face, "That's dark, Bel," I didn't know if he wanted me to reassure him in some way, but it was what it was. Sugarcoating things wouldn't help us, "Why is anyone after us? What did we do? School just started back up. We've been back in town for a week!"

These were all questions I planned on asking once I busted the kidnapper's head open to see all of the bright colors inside. Or kidnapp _ers_ , because I had no idea if this was a group effort or not.

We landed a little ways away from where the app said Hisako's phone was and walked the rest of the way. It took us down a side street to a part that was under construction to connect back to a main road somewhere. There was construction equipment all over the place, and one person sat on a metal container watching us approach.

Eddie was jittery. It was a good thing his powers weren't as twitch-reactive as mine, or he probably would have fired by now. Not that I would blame him. I wanted some vengeance as well, but I wanted answers too, and I couldn't get those if I put a hole in the guy.

I took a deep breath and counted to ten. I wanted a calm, civil introduction, "Who are you? What do you want? And why am I not melting your face off with my bare hands?" I punctuated with a glow to my hands.

Close enough.

Our would-be kidnapper was a black guy with short dreads. He dressed just like a normal guy – jeans, t-shirt There wasn't anything remarkable about him at first glance. The lazy way he chewed his gum while sizing us up pissed me off though. He was holding my friend hostage. Have a little more urgency about you, dick, "I was hoping you would come alone."

"I'll bet you did," I remarked, "Easier pickings, right?"

"Well, yeah," He admitted, "That, and I don't give a shit about these two. I just wanted you, Bellamy."

Eddie looked between the two of us, "Just him?" He asked in disbelief, "Why any of us? This is bullshit. We're kids. What did Bel do to piss you off, man?"

"I don't care what I did," I snapped. We could see Hisako sat in the lifted shovel of a bulldozer, tied up and miserable, "I came to pick up something that belongs to me," I dropped my scowl and tried my best to smile at Hisako, "Hey, Armor. You okay?"

"My head hurts from where I got hit, but I'm fine," Hisako said, fidgeting with her bonds. Her face was full of regret, "...Damn it, Bel, Eddie. I'm sorry."

I shook my head. She didn't need to apologize for someone ambushing her, "It's okay. It seems like this shit happens to all of us," I then jerked my head in the direction of my red-headed homie, "Well, not Eddie, yet. I'm guessing he's due at some point."

"Dude, don't put that evil on me," He bantered back. He was still very concerned with what was going on with Hisako, "...Why isn't she armoring up?"

A great question. He'd clearly gotten the drop on her somehow and made the most of it. But tying her up wouldn't stop her from activating her powers when she woke up, "What did you do to her?"

The man looked at us like we were dumb, "I thought the mutant cure was created in this time."

My legs almost gave out in horror. Hisako's eyes started welling up with tears the moment it sank in what was said. I wouldn't believe it. It couldn't be true. The X-Men destroyed all of that crap. They said they did. Had they missed some?

Eddie reacted much more explosively than either of us.

"What?" He was beside himself. When the news about the mutant cure came out, he was more afraid of it than any of us, and now his best friend was powerless? Livid wasn't the word to describe him, "You did what!? YOU GAVE HER WHAT!?"

Before I could say or do anything myself, Eddie bolted off of his starting point, flying at Hisako's kidnapper as fast as he could. My boy wasn't much of a hand-to-hand guy, but there was no doubt in my mind he would have torn his head off if he'd hit him. He didn't, because we weren't the only ones on the scene with powers.

The moment Eddie went to attack, the kidnapper took a step back and dropped into a tear in reality, avoiding the wrath of Wing altogether. Another reality tear opened up in the air by Hisako, with the man landing on the bulldozer next to her.

A teleporter? We had to hit him fast and hard. The moment I saw him again, I took my shot. With a wave of his hand, he opened a portal that ate up my blast. It reappeared, firing from a place in the sky at Eddie. It nearly clipped him, but he somehow dodged it. It slowed him down before he could rush the kidnapper again though.

"You piece of shit!" Eddie spat hatefully. And why not? It wasn't like he had no reason, "You're a mutant and you erased her powers forever! How the FUCK could you do that to anyone else!?"

The kidnapper sneered at Eddie, "What are you talking about? 'Hope' is temporary. It lasts 12 hours and wears off if you don't keep taking it."

"What? That's bullshit. No, it's not," I said. It just came out a few months ago, before the X-Men shut it down. We watched every scrap of news on that crap when it first came out. It definitely took away powers for good, "It strips your powers, and that's that. There's no wearing off. It's permanent."

The guy seemed honestly confused by what I was saying, until suddenly it dawned on him, "That's... that actually makes sense from what I know about history. Well, it's not like that where I come from. She'll definitely get her powers back."

With those words, whether we could trust them or not, a weight lifted off of our shoulders. Hisako used her shoulders to dry her eyes before any more tears could leak out. At least we weren't dealing with a complete monster here.

Even Eddie calmed down, "Where you come from?" He parroted, his emotions having run the absolute limits in the last few minutes, "Dude, I'm sick of this. Who are you?"

The man didn't seem keen on identifying himself properly, "I guess if you have to call me something, you can call me... Skip, I guess."

My eyes went wide and my lips twitched, "Skip? You're kidding, right? You kidnapped my friend and had the balls to attack my school with a lame ass name like that?" This was a serious situation, but I couldn't help but laugh.

What kind of self-respecting asskicker would walk around and let themselves be called Skip in the 21st century? I hoped for his sake that wasn't his given name. Actually, no I didn't. It would be just another thing I could mock him about after I beat his ass.

I laughed. Eddie laughed. I hoped it made Hisako feel better where she was. It was a Paladin bonding moment. And then I was knocked flat on my ass from a fist that appeared out of thin air.

"Oh shit!" Eddie called out from above, "Bel, that dude just teleported his fist into your face!"

"I noticed!" I shouted. I could see a fist poking out of a tiny portal before it pulled back and the portal vanished. I got up off of the ground with a brand new bloody nose, "If you could get to Hisako the way you did, and you only wanted me, why didn't you just get me?"

"Because you always have someone around you," Skip said. I inferred from his tone of voice that he was somehow calling me a bitch for always having some kind of company around. He gestured to Eddie, "Case in point seeing that you brought your pal here to watch your back. When you're in your room, you have your little wolf thing with you. Also, you don't sleep."

He knew way too much for someone who I'd never seen before, "How have you been watching me?"

"I haven't been. Let's just say I got that information somewhere else, from a very reliable source."

That wasn't very helpful at all. Then again, we were supposedly enemies, "What do you want from me?" I asked.

"I want your death," Okay, we were _definitely_ enemies, "I don't care about the rest of them," He said about my friends, which... actually did make me feel better. Not by much, though.

I didn't get it. I was a high school student. I wasn't even a real X-Man. Unless this guy was a Reaver or with the Facility, I had no idea what his deal was, "What did I do to you? Why are you trying to kill me? There are actual superheroes at that school who could fuck with your evil plans. Go after them!"

"I don't have any evil plans, you stupid little-!" Skip growled at me "I'm here to kill you, because 30 years from now, Bellamy Marcher, you destroy the Earth, and the entire galaxy!"

...Oh.

Well, hell then.

* * *

 **Oh no. Say it ain't so. Our boy can't be the kind of guy to go down that deep, dark hole to supervillainy. Or can he be? Either way, this Skip fella wants his head on a stick. And he probably doesn't have any problems going through the Paladins to get it. Not if the future fate of the planet is on the line.**

 **What does this all mean? Well, that's what the next chapter is for, ladies and gentlemen. So I hope you enjoyed this chapter in the meantime.**

 **Until the next time, Kenchi out.**


	26. Time Is On Your Side

Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel. I need $450K. I just saw some dude with a flying suit in England and he's selling them. I'm all over that.

 **Chapter 26: Time Is On Your Side**

* * *

Fighting people when they can teleport is a bitch and a half. I can't get this point across enough. It's a wretched experience. You don't get close to them, unless they want you to be close, and they can turn up anywhere around you.

Skip was a terrible draw to fight, because not only could I not close the distance against him, he could teleport my blasts away from himself whenever I did manage to get a bead on him.

Eddie wasn't doing much better. He wasn't a one-dimensional, go-really-fast-in-one-direction type. Wing was the most versatile and controlled flier out of all of the student trainees, able to stop on a dime and turn at any angle like it was nothing, but he was finding it hard to get a decent shot at our opponent as well.

I took aim at Skip and tried to time it with Eddie's approach from another angle. It didn't do much to throw him off. I fired a blast and he created a portal with one hand to catch it, another to return fire with it in Eddie's direction. It was a trick he'd tried before, so Eddie was ready for it, but Skip was ready for Eddie's preparations.

He created a portal that Eddie flew through, dumping him out on the other side. He'd tried to get Eddie to crash through the fence of some poor family's backyard. A nice try, but it was enough space that Eddie could pull up, saving himself from taking a header into solid wood planks.

It took way too long to start coordinating our attacks, but my excuse was a combination of factors coming together. Eddie was still pissed about Hisako's power scare. He had also never fought a real person before outside of spars or drills.

I couldn't get the idea out of my head that I apparently destroyed the world years from then. That was a mistake, as there were more important things to deal with, like the guy trying to kill me.

Skip wasn't playing games. After dealing with enough blasts from me, he decided to take a few shots of his own, pulling out a handgun. I took cover behind a concrete barrier as he took potshots in my direction. I swiped my arms to signal Eddie to stay away, as if he needed me to tell him anything after hearing gunfire.

I couldn't even throw my arms up without hot lead flying my way, "You had a gun this whole time, you pink eye! Why didn't you start with that?" I yelled at Skip over the gunfire. At least I had cover for the time being. I could try and think of a way to attack, 'Come on, you're the idea guy! Think of something good!'

I'd come into this rescue half-cocked. We'd meant well, but Eddie and I had only been prepared for so much of a fight. Hisako couldn't help from where she was, and he could just shoo my blasts away. We couldn't get close either without him using his damn portals.

...Speaking of which, one opened up in front of me above my head, behind my cover, trying to aim down at me. I realized it just as it started firing inaccurately at me. In a panic, I launched a blast that exploded on the gun in his hand.

"Gah!" Skip pulled his burned hand back through the portal, and an opportunity arose.

He knew how my powers worked. He knew other things about me. He didn't know anything about Eddie though, and the fairly new little wrinkle Eddie had discovered about his powers – that they didn't just let him fly. He could control the gravity of other things by touch.

Eddie finally had the chance to get in and divebomb Skip. He hit him with a punch, but Skip's hands were up to block. That didn't matter though. The most important thing though, was that because Eddie had touched him and then willed it to be so, Skip's feet were off of the ground, and he had no control of himself.

That meant no portals to dive into for him.

He was a sitting duck, slowly drifting higher into the air like a balloon. He couldn't move. He couldn't do much of anything. And I had dynamite in my hands.

With great vengeance and anger, I popped up and blasted him from forty yards away with my un-casted hand. Center mass – a fantastic shot. In hindsight, I probably should have picked up the gun and tried my luck at shooting him with _that_ instead.

I knocked him to the ground. The sound of breath being forced out of his lungs was sweet. I hope I broke a few ribs, the bastard. I jumped the barricade to push my advantage. Eddie swooped back around to try and get him again while he could. Neither of us could get to him before he opened a portal underneath himself and slipped away again.

Eddie and I met at the spot Skip had just vacated, "Oh, come on!" Eddie complained at a lack of defeated foe at our feet, "The only way that shot could have been better is if it was a head shot... or if you blew his stinking guts open. But I guess you can't kill people."

Well, I _could_ have, if I'd been thinking about it. I could have done it and called it an accident. I had to stop myself from saying that out loud. That was a slippery slope to start going down. The more pressing issue was where our quarry went.

"Where the fuck did he go? Hisako?" I asked, looking over at our bound teammate. She just shrugged her shoulders, "Alright. I'm coming to get you loose. Eddie, keep an eye out from above," It wouldn't do to let our guard down and get ambushed.

"Aye-aye, captain," Eddie saluted me before taking off for recon.

I looked both ways like I was crossing the road before taking off in a sprint for Hisako, jumping up to where she was held in the elevated bulldozer shovel in a single bound. I complained out loud while I ripped her restraints apart and checked her over for injuries or any other nasty surprises.

"Complete bullshit," I muttered like a grumpy old man, "I'm enacting a goddamn Paladin buddy system. Nobody goes anywhere alone anymore! You take Wolf with you to classes if you have to! I don't even care if he complains! I'll make that metal S.O.B. go!"

I didn't mean to bitch in front of her like she'd done something wrong. She hadn't. I was just worried. Anger means I care, otherwise I'm sarcastic and apathetic about the things that go on around me.

Once Hisako's hands were free and I'd shut up, she threw her arms around my neck in a hug – one I readily returned. She was still powerless, so I had to scoop her up and jump down. Eddie flew down and was the next to receive Hisako's grateful embrace, "What took you two idiots so long?" She said.

"Jesus, Armor," Eddie said with a chuckle, patting Hisako on the back as she buried her face into his chest, "You let a dude named Skip knock you out and drag you off? For shame," He got her to laugh and give him a punch, which was a victory for him, "Bel, I haven't seen the guy since he teleported again."

"I'm not going to dignify that guy by calling his powers something as cool as teleporting," I said, waving my hand to dismiss our enemy, "From now on, we call what he does 'skipping', because fuck Skip."

That we could agree on. Besides, I didn't have all of the facts, but for as strong as his power could be, it had some weaknesses that I could pick out. It wasn't really teleporting. What Mister Wagner did was teleporting.

"I don't think he's coming back," Hisako said, once she finally got away from Eddie, "Bel, you got him good. If he couldn't telep-, skip," She corrected herself, full of resentment for the person who took her away, "-You guys would have got him. I'd put money on it that he's on his last legs right now."

Eddie punched into his palm, "So let's go find him and regulate his ass!"

As much as I wanted to make sure the shot I landed on Skip counted, I was also in my right mind, "We're not getting that guy," I was aware of the situation. If Eddie didn't see him when he swept the area, he was gone, "If he ran, he's miles away by now. We could never catch him ourselves. You know I'm right," I said, seeing the look of displeasure on Eddie's face. I changed the focus to the girl we had come out there for in the first place, "...Besides, we really should have Dr. McCoy look at Hisako and make sure she's alright."

Hisako scowled at me. I gave her a look back. What, was I not supposed to show concern over her well-being, "I'm fine. And he said I'll get my powers back in a few hours."

Reminding Eddie of the reality that Hisako could have, or still could, lose her powers put him firmly on my side, "I don't trust that guy! He says Bel's gonna destroy the planet," He reached out and grabbed my head to present to Hisako, "This guy. This is the guy that's gonna cause Armageddon. This is the guy that's gonna screw over the Earth."

I went out of my way to give her the dullest, driest stare I could to back up his point. I was far from impressive-looking enough to convince anyone that _I_ was going to destroy anything.

"Okay... you've got me there," Hisako conceded, "But I still feel fine. Seriously, I don't feel any different."

"But you still can't armor up," Eddie said, "Please go see the doctor? It would make me feel a whole lot better," He begged her.

Eddie pleading for Hisako's health was her breaking point, "Fine. But you two better be ready," She put on a smug grin, "You're gonna be in so much trouble when we get back."

I knew she was right, but Eddie scoffed, not believing her, "Yeah right. We kicked a bad guy's butt and rescued a damsel in distress," Hisako pinched him at being referred to as a damsel in distress, "What are we gonna get in trouble for? Being heroes?"

XxX

Within thirty minutes, Hisako had been taken down to the medical bay, and Eddie and I were sat outside of the school's administrative office. The moment we'd spotted anyone to hand Hisako off to, we'd been ordered to head over and wait.

...You know... like heroes.

I was completely chill about the whole thing. I'd been there enough times in the last few months to be familiar with the atmosphere, but Eddie was beside himself.

"Hey-hey-hey! That was some heroic stuff! We're heroes! Why are we basically waiting outside the principal's office?" He asked, fidgeting about in his seat. He stopped and turned to me, "...Does this always happen?"

I let out a sigh, resigning myself to my fate of seemingly being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, "Every. Single. Time," I said, giving Eddie a sardonic smile, "Welcome to the club."

Eddie clearly expected more fanfare from doing the right thing, "I still don't get why we're in trouble."

"No? You don't?" A strong, Russian accent got both of our backs to straighten up, "How about, because you left the school during lockdown procedures. Or because you battled a dangerous enemy that even the X-Men know nothing about?"

We turned to face the towering Colossus. From the look on his face and the cross of his arms, it was clear he wasn't pleased, "Hey, Mister Rasputin. What's up?" I said, trying to play things cool. I failed.

"Nothing good," He said as he walked over and placed a hand on each of our shoulders, "Bellamy, Eddie, I respect your desire to protect your teammate, but there were better ways to handle this. Safer ways. You put yourselves in great danger."

I knew that. But the alternative was leaving Hisako in a bad guy's hands. I let him know as much, "Skip said he would kill her if any X-Men showed up."

Mister Rasputin seemed as confused by the name as he should have been, "Skip?" I almost laughed.

"That was what the guy called himself," Eddie clarified for our advisor's sake, "He's totally full of crap. There's no way anyone ever called him that before he showed up in front of us. God, I hope not, at least."

"Why did this man contact you?" Mister Rasputin asked. Funnily enough, it was suspect as to why someone would bother trying to interact with a student when full-fledged superheroes lived on the grounds, "What did he want you to do for him?"

"He wanted me to die," I said before I got somewhat hesitant to elaborate further, "He said... some things."

I didn't want to talk about it anymore, and he could see as much, but it was his job to know what problems and threats we had against us out there, "Bellamy... I know that you do not know me as well as you got to know Katya before she disappeared... but I am here to help you. I _want_ to help you."

I had to give him a chance. He was our advisor, and the X-Men were experts at dealing with this kind of thing, "He said I destroy the world. A long time from now, but he said it happens," I revealed.

Mister Rasputin was stunned before trying to take things logically, "I do not understand. How? Why?"

Eddie stepped in at that point, having been there for the entire thing as well, "We didn't really get a lot of details from him before he started in on Bel. You don't think he's telling the truth, do you?"

That was a loaded question. If he said 'no', he was a fool for disregarding something that potentially dangerous, and if I went off we would all pay the price. If he said 'yes', he acknowledged that I was a ticking time bomb that would eventually take all of existence on Earth and beyond with him.

Mister Rasputin stood me up and looked me in the eye, "Remember, there was a prophecy that I was the one who would destroy an entire world," I remembered, of course. Breakworld, "It was nothing more than the manipulations of one desperate individual. Important things were lost because of it."

Yes, but in the end, he didn't destroy anything. He didn't doom a planet. He helped save it, and ours.

"The Paladins are my responsibility now," The gigantic Russian man assured me, "I will do everything in my power to help. I will not let anything bad happen to you."

I tried to smile. I don't think it ended up being much more than a well-meaning grimace. I wanted to believe him. I really did.

XxX

The next day came and no random acts of violence or malice were posed to me or my school. Fortunately, no word had gotten out about what had happened the other day, so I could at least try to shove it to the back of my mind while I was in class.

It didn't even take that long for wonderful distractions to pop up. I love Xavier's so much. That school refused to let you dwell on any one thing.

Some of Megan's team, Ben and Nick, caught me while I was trying to grab something quick for breakfast and went to walk with me on the way to classes. Ben was a pretty serious guy, so any small talk with him lasted a few moments. Nicky was a lot more talkative, which made getting any kind of enjoyment out of the two bottles of orange juice I snagged tricky.

I had to resort to unscrewing the top with one hand and my mouth because Nicky was curious about the cast on my other hand, "Why does everyone try to screw with you when you have one of these on?" I asked through the plastic cap.

Ben stepped in to reel his teammate back in before he could annoy me, "You shouldn't mess with that thing, Nick. Megan told us it's protecting the implant in his hand."

"Does it itch?" Nicky asked me, curiously poking at the cast with one of his clawed fingers before I pulled it away.

I gave the wolf boy a sour look, "Yeah, it itches. It's like having a marble surgically embedded in the back of my hand," I said, tapping him on the head. He barely responded at all, and I looked at my hand longingly, "I wish I had a hard cast. The only good thing about any cast is getting to hit stuff and not feel it."

My complaints fell on deaf ears when it came to Ben. It sounded like I was just bellyaching, "There's no way anyone's going to let you fight until that thing is off," Which meant no one would let me spar or otherwise train. I scowled and reached for the underside of the cast. Ben swatted me, "Don't rip it off."

Was I really that easy to read by now?

Nicky tried to encourage me to be patient in my recuperation, "Yeah, it's like a protective cocoon for your broken hand caterpillar. If you keep it on, it'll turn into a healed hand butterfly."

Ben and I looked at each other before he responded first, "That was beautifully dumb, Nick."

The moment was interrupted when Julian came over and threw an arm around me, trying and failing to move me away from earshot of the male Paragons. Nicky could hear him from just about anywhere in the courtyard, and Ben wasn't going anywhere he didn't want to. It was best to just get things over with, "What is it, dude?" I asked.

Julian took a deep breath. Whatever he was going to say was difficult for him, "Marcher, I need your help."

The grin I had could have split my face, "...Whaaaaaat?" I drawled long and deliberately, making a show of it. Ooh, he hated that, "Do you want to repeat that for me? I'm not sure I heard you right."

Julian's face started turning red, "Don't be an asshole," The fact that he hadn't shoved me away and stomped off meant he really needed a favor.

"Oh, but I am an asshole. I can admit that," I said, stroking my chin, "And like the asshole that I am – the asshole that you also are, by the way – I'm going to savor this."

It irked him to ask for any kind of assistance from me, "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Eh, it depends on what you want," I said. Julian grit his teeth and his body outlined in a telekinetic green glow, signifying that I was getting to him. That was all I wanted, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'll help. Whatever it is can't be that bad."

Seriously, a guy had tried to kill me the other day. I doubted what the leader of the Hellions wanted compared to that.

Julian calmed down, anger quickly replaced with a cocky stride, "I got Sofia to agree to go out with me."

Huh. He'd been chasing her for a while, "Good for you," I said honestly.

That wasn't all to the story though, as he would reveal, "-But her team talked her into bringing them with us, so Foley and his girl... uh, Wallflower, they're going. I think Ashida and Alleyne are going too, which is gonna tank the whole night."

Absolutely it would. That was a recipe for a mini war zone in Salem Center, "Bad for you," I said, stating the obvious.

"-But it's not just a double date," Julian continued, trying to salvage his own situation, "It's more like a couple's night. So, more people can come."

"Uh... good for you?" I said confusedly. He didn't need to say anymore for me to know he wanted my girl and I to take part, "How is my going with Megan supposed to help you?"

"Because you don't straight up hate me," He said. Wow, that was the criteria we were working with nowadays? Fair enough, "Not like the rest of the New Mutants do, anyway. You won't try to provoke me like the others will. At least you'll be neutral and call out anyone else."

The man had a point. I was straight-up Switzerland, as far as the issues between the New Mutants and the Hellions went. I'd already expressed in the past how annoying it was that both teams always seemed to be at each other's throats. It was a common opinion around school too.

Aside from that, I did owe Julian for the thing in California. That didn't mean I couldn't try to get something out of it on my end though, "Fine. On one condition," He seemed a bit nettled at my request, but he heard me out, "I can get Eddie to go too, but you've got to get him a date."

Julian raised an eyebrow at me. I hadn't given him that bad of a condition. Just an odd one, "What? Why can't you do it?"

Nicky snickered while Ben smirked and gave Julian the answer, "He already tried with the other girls on our team. Jessie's a precog, so she shut it down before he even came up with a way to approach them. Poor bastard."

I narrowed my eyes at the flaming-headed boy, "Are you talking about me or Eddie?"

"Yes."

I snapped my teeth spitefully at Ben before turning my attention back to Julian, "Anyway, you're gonna thank me for bringing him if anyone tries to start something," I said, continuing to try and convince him, "He's way better at deescalating things than I am."

My streak of persuasive reasoning continued, as Julian seemed to think this was a good plan, "I have an idea of who I can bring. Think he'll go with Cess?"

That was a great idea. I had no clue why he seemed apprehensive about it, "Oh, absolutely. Why wouldn't he?" Cessily was pretty, and from her interactions with Laura she was a nice girl. Julian gave me a deadpan look until I realized what the problem might have been, "Oh, the whole metal body thing? Yeah, I don't think he gives a fuck about that."

A dismissive attitude wasn't the one to take here. Julian took the possibility of Cessily being received badly deadly serious, "Make sure before it becomes a problem later."

I rolled my eyes but pulled out my phone and gave Eddie a call to keep the peace. It rang for two beats before he picked up, _"Hey, Bel. What do you want?"_

I walked off for some semblance of privacy, again in vain, "I want you to say I'm the best leader you've ever had. That's what I want," I started off smugly.

" _You're the_ only _leader I've ever had."_ Meh. Semantics, _"Why? What did you do?"_

"Got your bitch ass a date. That's what I did," I said, dropping the bomb on him.

In my wondrous mind, I envisioned Eddie taking off into the air when I told him that, because I heard a whoosh, _"No way! Finally! Who is it?"_

"Cessily."

" _Mercury? Fucking awesome! When is it?"_ There you go. Didn't care about the metal-ness at all, just like I knew.

My ego levels were at an all-time high by this point. Julian wasn't even mad. He just shook his head with a smile on his face while I spoke to my friend, "Saturday night. It's some big couples' thing, so you won't even have the pressure of entertaining her by yourself. Lucky you."

Eddie immediately booed me over the line, _"Aww, but I wanted a solo date. This doesn't count. You suck."_

What the-? I was doing him a favor. He could show some gratitude for what I'd managed to pull off, "If you don't fuck up, you can ask her out again later. Better to do it this way first and figure out if you even like her."

" _I'm more concerned about Mercury liking me than the other way around, but you've got a point,"_ Eddie eventually conceded, _"That's why you make the big bucks."_

"I don't make any bucks..." I muttered before deciding to finish up, "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know what was up. I'll tell you more later," I said, ending the call there, "Right. That's done. I'm assuming he's got to ask her or something."

"She'll say yes," Julian assured me, more subdued than I ever remembered hearing him sound, "This is actually gonna be a really good thing for her. You're kind of doing me two favors here, Marcher," I wordlessly asked him to elaborate further, "Cess... takes her mutation kind of hard," He admitted, not knowing how much it was his business to say, "She doesn't think anyone will ever want to get with her because she's made of metal."

Understandable. High school years gave you enough problems with worrying about being odd. Now take that sentiment, and add it to the fact that we were in a school full of kids that the rest of the world would consider freaks, "Well, lucky for you, Eddie doesn't give a shit. He just wants to try his luck with a pretty girl."

Julian nodded before freezing and giving me an odd look, "When you say 'try his luck-.'"

"Yeah, he's gonna try and get laid. I'm like 95% sure," There was no need for me to be subtle. We all knew what the score was. I pointed right at Julian before he could respond, "I don't want to hear it either. You're putting this whole thing together to try and get laid too, you big hypocrite."

"I wasn't going to say anything," He replied, waving his hands defensively, "...Come to think of it, I'm not sure how Cess-."

"Ah-ah-ah," Knowing where he was going, I let our talk end right there, "-Let's just stop speculating about that," Best to leave that for Eddie to find out if he had enough game, "Even if they do hit it off, she probably isn't gonna give it up on a group date."

I probably didn't have to tell Eddie to behave, but I had to make sure he would be on his best behavior. His character would reflect on me, damn it!

XxX

The day dragged on and saw us all out at the basketball courts after our last classes ended. Hisako, Ruth, and I were posted up on the bleachers, where we had kicked Eddie away from in order to ask Cessily out. She was with a few other girls that went to school, but conversation aside, her attention seemed focused on her surroundings, trying to solve an unspoken mystery.

She had been smartened up to some degree. Clearly, she was expecting something.

Eddie, meanwhile, had refrained from taking another step her way after he'd gotten out of casual speaking distance from the rest of us. God, he looked awkward, trying and failing to make it seem like he was just chilling. As welcome a distraction as it was from my ongoing trials and tribulations, it was kind of painful to watch, and he hadn't even initiated a conversation with Cessily yet.

"He's gonna blow it," Hisako declared, shaking her head pitifully.

Whatever happened to believing in your friends? She was his identified best friend, not me, "He's not gonna blow it. He's fine," I sighed back.

"Right. Sure," She chuckled at my expense, "You'd better check again. Look at his face, he's scared to death!"

I squinted and observed Eddie as well as I could from a distance with my eagle-eyed vision. He looked like a man set to go off the high dive for the first time, "But why? He talked a big game this whole time! How's he scared?"

Hisako slowly angled herself toward me to give me the full scope of her dismissive attitude, "Why do you think he needed you to get him a date in the first place?" She asked as though it should have been obvious the whole time.

Suddenly, I saw it, but it didn't make sense. I had seen him flirt. I had heard him whine insufferably about someone hooking him up. Now that I did, I needed him to come through, "Look, Cessily is expecting to get asked out. Julian didn't tell her who was gonna do it, but he got her hopes up. If Eddie pussies out, he's probably gonna restart my beef with the Hellions, and they'll be in the right this time."

Hisako didn't have an answer for me, nor was she very helpful in coming up with a solution, "Guess you better cozy up tighter to the New Mutants for more allies."

No. That was not an option. I hadn't succumbed to high school's clique bullshit yet and I didn't plan on doing it then, "Fuck that. Ruthie, put me in Eddie's head," Our telepath dutifully did as I asked, _'Eddie, quit being a bitch and go talk to her!'_

He shivered and looked around sharply before turning back to where our team was observing from, _'Bel, get out of my head! Blindfold, get him out of my head!'_ He demanded once he knew what was going on.

I held up a hand to keep Ruth from ejecting me. There was a job to be done, and damn it, it was going to get done, _'No, you will listen! You wanted me to make this happen for you, and I did! Now put your big boy pants on and finish this!'_

' _You didn't do anything! She doesn't know it's me that's gonna ask her out! What if she says no?'_

I felt like pulling my hair out. Hooking a friend up was not supposed to be this difficult, _'Then you're in the same position you were in before any of this started!'_ I continued to shout at him in our heads, _'Dude, you'll flirt like a moron in class and talk shit, but when go time rolls around, you fall back? Come on! You seemed so excited about this a few hours ago.'_

The more we went back and forth, the more he seemed to panic at the thought of marching across the yard and talking to Cessily, _'Under false circumstances! I thought you talked to her already and she said yes! The deal was supposed to have been sealed! This is not what we agreed on!'_

Sealing a deal? What did he think this was, a charity dating service? Well, until UNICEF got into the goddamn matchmaking business, this was the best he was going to get. He wasn't going to get a girl handed to him on a silver platter. He had to do _something_ himself.

' _What, do you want me to go on the goddamn date for you too?'_ I stopped and went wide-eyed. That gave me an idea. I looked over at Ruth to ask her an unvoiced question. The little mind-reader nodded yes, and I grew devious, ' _Fine! I'll do this myself! Last chance. Float your ass over there and ask that girl out before I have Ruth hijack your brain and do it for you!'_ A fear the likes of which I hadn't seen on Eddie's face formed at that moment. I had him, _'You have ten seconds! Ten! Nine!'_

Some unholy combination of curses and angry noises drifted back through the mental connection before Eddie walked off to do as he was commanded. The closer he got, the more the nerves seemed to offset his anger, leaving him somewhere in the middle, and oddly composed, by the time he got to her.

Hisako let out a hum as we returned to our previous position as spectators from afar, "That seemed intense, from the look on your face. Think whatever you said worked?"

I let out an irritated grunt, "Doesn't matter. He went over there. That's all that's important," Once Eddie's episode was over, I gave her a sidelong glance before looking away again, "So, how are you doing?"

She acted like the whole concerned leader thing was a pain, but I knew she appreciated the sentiment, "My powers are back, Bel. You saw me armor up this morning."

"That's not what I mean," I said, giving her a nudge, "Breakworld was one thing. Getting kidnapped was some scary shit on its own. I just want to make sure you're okay upstairs."

Hisako raised an eyebrow with a ghost of a smile, "Shouldn't I be asking you that instead? I'm not the one who destroys the world. You are," She tried to play it cool, but there was real concern there.

"I'll be fine," I still wasn't convinced, but again, I wanted to believe in Mister Rasputin. He _was_ taking steps to make sure we got all of this figured out, so I was giving the benefit of the doubt, "Apparently, I'm supposed to go and get checked out by some specialists."

Hisako seemed skeptical that we could just find help so easily, "Specialists on galactic-scale power that you may or may not have?"

I gave her what I hoped was a confident wink, "The X-Men ain't the only superheroes in the world."

XxX

Mister Logan dragged me to New York to see these specialists, and he was none too pleased about it. I don't see why though. I guess he figured I'd embarrass him in front of the _goddamn Fantastic Four_.

…Yeah. That was who had been called to take a look at my potentially destructive future.

It was a major mind trip, flying the Blackbird into the Baxter Building. The entire way there, Logan was telling me not to fuck up or do anything dumb. Thankfully, it had been a remarkably short flight.

"Rule number five: don't touch anything," He barked from the nearby as I sat on an examination table in my underwear. I felt drained by the preemptive lecture, "Rule number six: don't run your mouth."

"-I'm gonna break that one," I managed to slip in as Mister Fantastic attached more sensors to me.

Mister Logan growled back at me, "I'm serious, kid. We're calling in a favor for this one. A second favor, actually. And by that, I mean _I'm_ calling in a favor. For you. Fucking waste of a favor," He looked back in the middle of his griping to find me with my arms wide open, "What are you doing?"

"Waiting on my hug. Because you love me. I knew you had a soft spot for me," The sound of the claws on one of his hands popping got me to put my arms down, "I was just kidding."

"Please, don't damage any of the equipment, Logan," Mister Fantastic said, chiding the angry senior X-Man and protecting me.

Logan harumphed and got up from his seat, slapping a quiet, introspective Mister Rasputin on the shoulder as he passed by him near the door, "Come on, Tin Man. Time's a wastin'. Let's see if Sue has anything for us."

Mister Rasputin had also come along, deciding to kill two birds with one stone. He wanted a conversation about Miss Pryde's whereabouts and the progress, or lack thereof, when it came to getting her home. I hoped I wouldn't catch the details of that.

Once I was settled, my teachers walked off, leaving me lying on a table alone inside of a lab. A machine looming over me hummed, doing… whatever it was doing. The grown folks had other things to see to.

"Alright, Bellamy," Mister Fantastic said, "My machine is set to determine your internal makeup; the various processes going on inside of your body that allow your powers to function. I'm aware that mutants oftentimes have unique physical properties that aren't always readily noticeable. With this, we can probe you down to the very cell, look for any variances from the common human biology and determine what it is that sets you apart, and if it's something that needs to be closely monitored."

I stared at him, wondering how to politely tell him that everything that had just come out of his mouth went clear over my head, "…I'm sorry Dr. Richards, I got about thirty percent of that," I said apologetically, "My science chops are more computer and programming related," And even then, I was, like, university-level.

He smiled the smile of a man used to dumbing things down for people in layman's terms, "This machine will help me determine the physical nature of your powers, so we can see if there's anything to fear," He reiterated, "I hope you're comfortable. This may take a while. About as long as a CAT scan. I can assure you, it's very thorough."

"You're fine. I've got more time in a day than most people," I said. In reality though, sitting there getting scanned, or whatever the hell was happening to me, was painfully boring.

Dr. Richards seemed to be using the time to work on other things, and I wished I could move. I would have spent the time doing my homework, but instead I had to wait until later. Damn it, I had an essay due in history class that I'd been procrastinating on.

I lingered on a table, staring directly into the light above that scanned my entire body. My brain almost turned off, until I turned to the side and found a little blond kid in a Fantastic Four jumpsuit staring at me. I couldn't tell how old he was. Younger than eight, maybe.

I was bored, and freaking out Mister Fantastic's kid by staring him down probably wouldn't go over too well, so I tried to engage him a bit, "Uh… hey there, little guy," I didn't know what to say. I was terrible with kids. They scared the shit out of me. You couldn't screw up with them the way you could with older people, otherwise you might mess them up, "What's going on? You doing good?"

He walked up closer, but stopped short of the containment wall that was keeping the light from Mister Fantastic's machine all on me, "Are you a mutant?"

Well, that was a straightforward question. I could work with that, "Yeah, I am. I go to the school the X-Men run and everything."

He put his hands on the wall and started hopping up and down, "That's so cool! I'm a mutant too!" He said excitedly, "What do you do?"

I held up a hand and made it glow to illustrate, "I do stuff with light. Blast stuff, power myself up. Those kinds of things. At least, I think so," I said, feeling the frown on my face, "Some stuff came up where I'm not exactly sure what my powers do exactly anymore."

"Oh," He said with big, wide eyes, "Is daddy helping you?"

I looked over at Mr. Richards, fully engrossed in whatever else he was doing while his machine was checking me out, "Yeah, he's working on it... and other things, I guess," I said lamely before turning the topic to him, "What's your name, little buddy?"

"Franklin."

"Franklin, huh? Well, I'm Bellamy."

And that was how I met Mister Fantastic's kid. I expected some kind of brilliant egg head that would make me feel like a moron because he was a genius and I wasn't. I mean... that would happen later with another Richards kid, but not Franklin.

The two of us just hung out and talked while my test was going on. It was a welcome distraction. He just asked me things and told me about what he'd seen and what his family had done. The little runt had big stories, and a lot of questions.

"Let's see," I said, in the midst of answering one of those questions, "I've been in space. I've been to other planets. I've never been to another dimension, and I've never time-traveled. I've been attacked by someone from the future though... err, allegedly."

The talk of me getting into a fight excited Franklin, "Did'ja beat him up?"

"Of course, I did," I said, knowingly preening in front of the boy. My ego was primed and ready for some much-needed hero worship, "You didn't know? I'm one of the X-Men. I'm strong. Not just anyone can smack me around."

Franklin tried his best to swell up and look badass. It was more hilarious than anything else, "Betcha I'm stronger than you!"

I didn't mean to laugh in the kid's face, but I did... because I'm an asshole, "I'm sure you are. I'll tell you what; drink your milk, take your vitamins, and say your prayers. Then maybe one day you can be big and strong like me!"

If I could go back in time and slap my past self across the face. Dear lord, I had no idea what I was saying at the time.

The light shining down on me changed colors and the machine scanning me gave off a noise, getting Dr. Richards to look up from his other work, "Alright, I think that should do it, Bellamy. You can go ahead and get dressed."

I exited the containment wall and poked Franklin, getting him to run me down and hit me in the side of the leg until I picked him up under one arm like a sack, "Here. I believe this is yours," I said, depositing him in front of his dad while I walked past him to get to my clothes, "I've gotta go put on some pants."

Once I was properly dressed, Franklin had been sent out of the room while one of the smartest people in the world sat me down and tried to figure out how to explain what he'd figured out about my powers and what exactly they did to me.

Dr. Richards more or less took me to school on my own shit, which really shouldn't have surprised me. It was why I'd been dragged off to see him, more or less.

"I guess we should begin with how you even gather energy in the first place," The man said, choosing an area to start from, "Your skin acts as a solar cell, drawing light in. From that point however, things are wildly different. Instead of converting the light into electricity, you simply store it."

...Okay? I knew that much. I didn't shoot people with electricity. I shot them with light-generated plasma. I needed a little more than that, "What, like in an organ or something?" Did I have an extra organ just for storing light energy? Like an internal battery?

"Not quite," Dr. Richards explained, showing me images of something that I couldn't recognize. He knew what it was though, so good for him, "Do you see this? The second source of energy in your body circulates constantly, which lends itself to your insomnia. But it isn't supplementary – it's vital. Whatever is stored goes into the cells that comprise your organs. The reason a complete loss of energy would be fatal for you is because it would equal organ failure."

"What I absorb circulates through my whole body, like blood?" I asked, trying to put together more pieces for myself instead of struggling to understand it from a goddamn genius, "It would definitely explain why fluorescent light and LEDs mess me up when they're my main light source."

"Artificial junk lighting, for you, works like junk food," Dr. Richards commented on my 'nutrition' with a chuckle, "Anyway, as you get older and grow more accustomed to the energy, you'll definitely expand what you can hold. You'll also find new sources to draw from and your body get used to those. But you're also gathering energy quicker than you used to in order to compensate."

This was all wonderful. It wasn't what I needed to know though, "How dangerous am I?"

Enough fumble-fucking around. There was point to all of this. It was time that we got to it.

Dr. Richards seemed a bit put off by the sudden shift in topic on my powers, but rolled with it nevertheless, "I suppose that is what you came here to find out," He said before laying things out for me, "...If you felt like it right now, you could do a good amount of damage, depending on where you were. Here in New York, considering your training and the power currently available to you, maybe a few blocks before someone with the ability to stop you stepped in. In Smalltown, USA, though, you could probably raze the place to the ground in an afternoon if you wanted to."

"Could I destroy the planet?"

"Earth? Absolutely not."

A spark of hope lit up inside of me, "Even if I overloaded?" I asked.

Dr. Richards let out a laugh, "If you absorbed more energy than your body could handle, you wouldn't destroy the world. You wouldn't destroy New York. You can't destroy a full town. A neighborhood, maybe. _Maybe._ "

Hearing that gave me no small measure of relief. I mean, overloading in any scenario was bad, but if I wouldn't do that much damage, it wasn't so terrible by comparison, "So, if someone told me that I would destroy Earth way out in the future, they'd be lying?"

He hesitated, and my relief all but dried up. It was never good when anyone hesitated while answering an important question, "In the future? How far in the future?" The more he said, the more my heart sank, "I meant you wouldn't be able to do it _now_ , but at the rate your powers are expanding... I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility."

If cursing out loud wouldn't have been so disrespectful, I absolutely would have, "I know these questions are getting really specific, but do you have, like, a timetable here?"

"I would say… by the time you're 25 years old?"

25 years old? Skip said I destroy the world in 30 years! Although, I guess just because I get strong enough to do it before then doesn't mean I automatically do it. Well wasn't all of that just a cold slap in the groin?

I stood up, stiff and uncomfortable. There was a lot to think about, and not much I could do about it in the moment. There was a possibility that all of this was real, "Thank you, Dr. Richards. I appreciate you taking the time to see me."

Being miffed was no reason not to be polite. There was no need to shoot the messenger, so to speak, but I was not happy. Dr. Richards obviously knew it. It showed on his face when he got up to shake my hand, "Think nothing of it, Bellamy. Wolverine tells me you're a bright young man. Determined as well."

I snorted in disbelief, "He actually said something nice about me?"

"...Well, what he called you had 'smart' in it," Oh. He called me a smart-ass. Got it, "And stubborn is another word for determined," Realizing he was killing his own argument, he stopped rambling, "The point is, you're the one in control of yourself. It's your power. If an issue arises somewhere in the future, I don't doubt you can find a way to solve it."

Yeah. That sounded really nice. It sounded like something an adult was supposed to say to encourage a kid. The only thing was, I was sixteen, not ten. And maybe it still would have worked, but I was a superhero-in-training, and I'd had too many snafus by this point to just buy someone else's spiel, "Oh yeah? How can you say that and mean it? You don't even know me, man. You just met me today."

Dr. Richards gave me a stern, lecturing look, "Because of how upset you seem. But it's not the kind of upset where you're giving up," He said, "I know that look in your eyes. The look of a man that refuses to accept that there's no viable solution. I've known many men who've accomplished great things, Bellamy. Things that most people thought were impossible. They've all had that look."

If Mister Fantastic was telling me to sack up and get something done, who was I to tell him I wasn't man enough to do it? It wasn't like I needed it done by tomorrow. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all.

With that in mind, I puffed my chest out and tried to wrestle back some of my swagger, "Well, I spent the last hour telling your son how awesome I am. I can't just go and lie to a little kid, can I? I'm not that much of a jerk."

Dr. Richards took my arrogant reply in good form. From what I heard, he was a pretty arrogant guy himself, "I'll be sure to hold you to that. Good luck, Bellamy."

I shook my head, "Doctor, I think the next time I get a lucky break since getting my powers will be the first time."

But from my view, relying on luck to get you through something was for losers. A better plan was just to make sure you were good enough to deal with it.

XxX

Despite my best attempts to distract myself from the spirit-crushing thoughts of the possibility that I might one day end the damn world, I couldn't get it out of my head. Even as I sat curled up on my bed with Megan watching a movie, I was absorbing the energy from the glow of the goddamn TV.

What could I _not_ absorb light energy from? I had never stopped to see just how many things there were out there I could power up off of. At this point, it was probably best to run off of the assumption that if it created light, I could siphon from it.

In the middle of traveling down the rabbit hole that was my power and the potential they held, Megan gave me a nudge that got me to look down at the girl leaning against my chest, "Are you okay?" She asked, looking up at me with bright eyes.

"Huh?" I was confused. I hadn't been any kind of grump that evening, "Yeah, I'm good. Why? What's up?"

Megan gestured to the TV where a movie was playing on Netflix, "We're watching Storks," She said, as though it explained everything. It kind of did, "You haven't complained once. You didn't even fuss when I picked it."

"I don't hate this movie," I argued weakly. I had no distaste for animation. A lot of them were pretty good, "Now, if you picked The Emoji Movie or something, I probably would have dumped you on the floor," I tried to add with some joking snark.

"Also, you're not trying to... you know," Megan added, gesturing to where my hands were situated- innocently around her waist... which was the problem apparently, "When you invite me over to watch something... we usually don't do a lot of watching at first."

I paused the movie, because I was in fact watching it. 45 minutes in, Storks was legit decent to me, and I shouldn't have known that. Normally my attention would have been on getting Megan's clothes off by the 30-minute mark and either finishing by the credits or coming back a minimum twenty minutes down the line and trying to figure out the plot from there.

"Crap. You're right," I said, moving my hand down to give her bottom a squeeze, "What kind of predictable jackass am I that you can gauge my mood off of how quickly I try to get your panties off whenever you come over to watch Netflix?"

She didn't pout or laugh, instead keeping her attention on my apparent mood, "What's wrong, Bel? Something has to be. You've been weird for the last two days."

I hadn't told her about the most recent Paladins problem. We'd chosen to keep our troubles closer to the vest this year unless we needed to tell other students. Then again, what was the point of trying to have a girlfriend if you weren't willing to tell her some important stuff?

"I'm not safe, Pix," I told her, "The longer you stay around me, the more likely you get caught in the splash zone."

Megan rolled her eyes and stroked my cheek, "We've been over this already. I really don't care. Duh! I still go to this school, don't I?"

The girl had a great point. At this point, between going to Xavier's, training to be one of the X-Men, and dating me, she was stacking danger multipliers like there was no tomorrow.

I laughed a bit. She was endearing enough where I still smiled, even though we weren't talking about anything particularly pleasant, "This is different. I'm a time bomb," I revealed, "One day I'm gonna go off, and from what someone I talked to recently said, I'll end up taking the whole world with me."

She didn't back up and move away from me. She didn't let go. She didn't even move my hand off of her butt, "Well... are you gonna explode tomorrow?"

"No."

"Next month? Next year?"

"It'll probably take longer than that... by like a decade or two."

Megan nodded and swung herself over to straddle me, hands set on my shoulders, "And even if I wasn't with you, you're still gonna go off, and you're still destroying the world. So, it doesn't matter how close or far away I'll be. I'm on Earth, so..." She trailed off.

The more she said, more I faltered in my resolute belief that I was dangerous, "I guess so. S-Stop making so much fucking sense, Pix!" I glared at her.

Megan giggled at my response. She was about as afraid of me as she would have been of a puppy, "So, you might go 'boom' and take us all with you when you do. _Buuuut_... you might not," She said, "And even if you do, that's then. This is now."

I touched her chin and pulled her in, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," She punctuated with a kiss, "You've never lied to me.

"Do you believe in me?" I asked, reaching down to unbutton her jeans. Her freckles shifted on her cheeks as a knowing grin came to her face.

"Yes," Another kiss, and her wings gave a beat as she moved herself to help me get her pants off, "You've never given me a reason not to, silly."

'Do you love me?' I caught myself at the last moment before those words would have thoughtlessly come out of my mouth. No chance I asked that. I hadn't before, and I wouldn't then. I wasn't that goddamn needy.

What the fuck did I know about loving someone anyway? Nothing. So we weren't going there. Not yet. I wasn't touching that with a ten-foot pole unless she brought it up first. But damn it... as close as she was, as warm as she was, the way she looked at me... if Megan only knew, she could have gotten me to say anything she wanted me to in that moment.

We stopped watching the movie at that point, having found something much better to do on my bed in the meantime. I wasn't any closer to solving my problem or getting my hands on Skip before he could take another shot at me, but that was what tomorrow was for.

As an added plus, because I paused the movie earlier, we got to see the rest of Storks when we were finished. So that was neat.

* * *

 **Hello people. Another day, another chapter. I've not got much to bloviate about in my author's note this time, so I'll just leave you with this.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed. I'll be back with more stuff later.**

 **Kenchi out.**


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